OPINION: Where’s the Nigerian Air Hadi promised us?

By Steve Osuji

If this man, HADI SIRIKA, AVIATION MINISTER, was not an ally of the president; if he was not a fake mullah who wears Buhari’s badge right at the centre of his chest, as if it were some kind of bulletproof (see picture); if he was not a member of the ruling cabal, he would have been dragged in the mud by the EFCC and he would probably be in jail already.

But Hadi is an untouchable. He is a staunch political godson of President Muhammadu Buhari, having served as a baggage handler for Buhari right from the CPC days where he won elections to the House and the Senate.

Hadi is also a kinsman of the president being from Katsina State.

It must be for these reasons that Hadi has ruled Nigeria’s aviatiin sector like an emperor since 2015. He started off as Minister of State for Aviation in 2015 and in 2019, was made sustantive minister in charge of Nigeria’s huge aviation industry.

He practically rules this most sensitive and highly technical sector from his sitting room in the last seven years.

How about this? All the parastatals and agencies in the sector have had no governing board since 2015 as they are required by law to have.

The agencies are:

The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the National Airspace Management Authority (NAMA), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET).

These four critical agencies are under mandate to be run by a Governing Board and some of them are required to have a preponderance of tested aviation professionals in their boards in other to aggregate the requisite high level skills for proper running of Nigeria’s aviation sector.

But for seven years, the affairs if these agencies can be said to have been solely directed by Hadi Sirika who influences the appointment of the heads of these agencies who in turn take orders from him.

Nigeria’s aviation industry therefore sits on the shoulders of a man who probably boasts only of an American quasi-piloting certificate as education. A low level pilot who wangled his way to become a lawmaker is now ensconced onto the pinnacle of Nigeria’s aviation where he has ruled it as sole administrator for seven years and counting

This of course explains why Nigeria’s aviation industry has been in the doldrums so far in the Buhari era.

You would think this kind of bureaucratic carnage would never happen in a country that boasts of a Senate. But it’s not for nothing Nigerians call the 8th Senate BUHARI’S RUBBER STAMP. There’s hardly any oversight being done by this NASS unless the oversight of their stomach. This is why no board appointments will be made in aviation sector for 8 years; they are supposedly reviewing the Acts. This story suits the Aviation Ministry, NASS and the Presidency.

While it took Stella Oduah, erstwhile Aviation Minister less than three years to revamp about 12 airport facilities across Nigeria, it has taken Hadi seven years to complete a terminal extension at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, which was half done by Mrs Oduah. Yet the glitzy edifice recently commissioned is said not to be suitable for modern wide-body flying vehicles. That is what happens when a mediocre is king.

There was a feasible masterplan drawn by Stella and her team to make Nigeria aviation hub of western Africa with a huge potential of an economic bazaar. But the deep can only speak to a counterpart. It has been seven years of Hadi’s gungho leadership and calamitous outcomes.

But nothing showcases Hadi’s stark ineptitude more than the NIGERIA AIR debacle. Recall that President Buhari as president-elect in 2015, had announced he would set up a national carrier as a matter of priority. He promised to convert more than half of the dozen aircraft in the presidential fleet into commercial craft for the new airline as he didn’t need so many aircraft. But the Presidential Fleet still has more aircraft than some national carriers. (Story for another day).

Buhari must have picked his brother and boy, Hadi, the small-time pilot turned politician to actualize his dream of floating a national carrier. After four years as a junior minister, supervising aviation under the Ministry of Transportation, Hadi must have told the president he needed to be a substantive minister to get the work done.

In 2019, Aviation was excised from Transportation and Hadi was installed as minister. But he immediately morphed into a barracuda. He gathered the entire aviation bureaucracy into the pocket of his babanriga and strutted the landscape like a sheikh. He even dresses the part sometimes as you can see in the photo below.

For three years Hadi who now imagines himself an Arabian prince, much wealthy now and playing polo, the game of kings, around the world didn’t know what to do about floating a national carrier as ordered by President Buhari.

He isn’t even smart enough to get professional help. He chose to do the Nigerian gra-gra. He must have got some foolish boys to design a logo and livery (see photo) for him and off he went to an airshow in Farnborough, England.

This was in July 2018. He was at the fair alone (well, unless you count the beautiful damsels fluttering about the Nigerian stand), because hardly any Nigerian aviation professional was with Hadi. He announced, with all the confidence of an ignoramus, that a new national flag carrier, NIGERIA AIR would take off in December of the same year, 2018, with 15 leased aircraft.

This caused an uproar back at home. Nobody in the industry or agencies seemed to know anything. None had seen the critical documents, how much more 15 leased aircraft.

Hadi said further at the airshow that Nigeria Air would own 30 craft in the next four years (which is this year 2022); it would generate 70,000 jobs and it would be private sector driven with government owning only 5% stake… among numerous other lies he told his listeners in London in 2018.

Of course, in December 2018, there was nothing. Even the logo and livery Hadi used to hoodwink people in London could not be sighted anywhere in Nigeria. So there was not even a working office.

Nothing was heard about “Hadi’s Air” until three and half years later (November 2021) when without prompting, as if he was press by a stalwart poo, Hadi jumped on our backs again. Like a crazed monkey he announced April 2022 as his new date for his airline (HADI AIR?).

It turned out that Hadi was not hoodwinking poor, gullible Nigerians alone, he was also gaming the entire Federal Executive Council (FEC). After a FEC meeting last November, Hadi, flanked by Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi and Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, had announced that the new national carrier would take off in APRIL 2022.

Here we are April is gone and May is fast dissipating. Not even as much as a whimper of apology have we heard from Hadi. Nor have we heard from the Senate that has approved billions of naira over seven years for NIGERIA AIR!

If he wasn’t a Minister of the Federal Republic, this fellow would have long been arrested and arraigned as a master con man.

This is a classic case of ramming a square peg into a round hole. And this exemplifies and defines the Buhari era. Driven by an overarching nepotistic mindset, he appointed too many misfits in his cabinet , people who hardly know their left from right, too stupid or pompous to seek help and who have been left in crucial MDAs for seven years. You shudder at the opportunities lost in seven years in these MDAs.

Now many of them, not unlike Hadi, are stupendously rich as they do nothing else but corrupt their offices. But we ask still:
WHERE’S THE NIGERIA AIR HADI SIRIKA PROMISED US?

▪︎STEVE OSUJI/06.05/2022

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