BY ROTIMI DUROJAIYE
The National Assembly, on Wednesday, directed the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika to halt the planned demolition of the offices of the aviation agencies in Lagos.
The directive came against the backdrop of the two-day warning strike embarked on by aviation workers’ unions which led to disruption of flight operations across the country.
Sirika had in December 2022, unveiled the plan of the Federal Government to demolish some of the agencies’ offices in Lagos.
The minister disclosed that the buildings would be develop into aerotropolis (airport city), stressing that it was in the interest of the entire aviation industry,
But in a letter jointly signed by the clerks of the aviation committees, Senator Abiodun Olujumi and Nnolim Nnaji, they expressed concerns over the frequency of industrial actions and the attendant disruption of flight operations in the country.
They noted that most of the issues causing the agitations were not new and wondered why they had continued to linger stressing that some of them have been in contention for years.
The letter also directed the Minister to furnish the committees with all the documents pertaining to the sundry issues raised by the workers which include non-implementation of the consequential adjustment to national minimum wage by some of the agencies as agreed in February 2022, non-release of the reviewed condition of service by the relevant government agencies for about a decade.
They noted that the continuous threats of outright demolition of the aviation agencies, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency headquarters without alternative provisions for their regional offices was not acceptable.
“In order to prevent further escalation of the crisis as envisaged by the failure of the federal Ministry of Aviation to address the issues within this warning strike period, we are directed to request that you furnish the committees with the following information: Comprehensive details of all issues under contention; Actions taken by the Ministry and its agencies to address the grievances of the workers; Challenges in implementing the various agreements reached with unions; Any other documents that are germane to the subject matter,” the letter added.
Controversy has continued to trail the recent directive by Sirika, for offices of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority in Lagos to be immediately demolished.
The aviation unions have threatened to resist the directive while questioning the minister’s decision to proceed with the concession of four international airports amid a myriad of labour issues yet to be resolved.
On Monday, passengers were stranded at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, as Nigeria’s aviation workers embarked on a two-day warning strike across the country.
The unions comprising the National Union of Air Transport Employees, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria; the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers and the Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals, were demanding, among other things, that the planned demolition of aviation agencies’ headquarters in Lagos be halted.
The Air Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, the National Union of Air Transport Employees and the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals had also held an emergency congress where they vowed to resist the minister’s directive for the offices of the agencies to be demolished for an aerotropolis project to be built.
Secretary General of NUATE, Ocheme Abah, who spoke on behalf of the unions, observed that for very inexplicable reasons none of the minister’s projects has been delivered to date against which reason, he has been in a frenzy to deliver the projects, for an administration that is at its twilight. He said this rush to deliver at all cost has caused suspicion and a plethora of missteps which he said if not corrected, will spell doom for the aviation industry.
“A source reportedly claimed that “from 2015 till date, there have been no job adverts. There have been no interviews. Yet, they have been employing many people and more than 90% are from the North”
“We place on record our recognition of the large footprints of the Muhammadu Buhari administration on the aviation industry in Nigeria. The progress registered through the efforts of Sirika and the CEOs of the agencies in the past seven years are indelible. Though not visible to the larger public, huge modernisation programmes and projects have been achieved in the Nigeria Metrological Agency (NiMet), Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Nigerian Air Space Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). These achievements have not only significantly improved flying experience in the Nigerian air space, but have had a big impact on human capacity development and safety.
“However, our hearts are now greatly troubled to be witnesses to the ongoing bastardisation of the lofty objectives of the Aviation Road Map. Activities around the implementation of the road map tend to suggest that a ploy is afoot to deny Nigeria the benefits of its labour and natural endowments, or to divert such to private ends. According to the unions, nothing evidences this more than the fact that key decisions and actions around the projects are taken outside the statutory organs of the ICRC; the Project Delivery Team in which our unions are represented for example. Such important questionable actions include appointment of Transaction Advisers and approval of Business Cases for all the projects,” he said.
Abah stressed that ever since the decision to concession the four most major airports was taken, the unions have remained strongly opposed to the idea and when the Outline Business case was made open to the public, they have been firm and vehement in their opposition to the type of concessioning envisioned by the Transaction Adviser.
“We unearthed several booby traps, outright falsehoods and deliberate manipulation of facts to skew the transaction against the interest of Nigeria, which we communicated to the Minister and other arms of government.”
General Secretary of ATSSSAN, Frances Akinjole, said there was no reason for the planned demolition of the former headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria in Lagos.
Akinjole said the administration had barely one month to exit, “yet demolition of aviation agencies still tops the list.” Why?”
He lamented that almost three years after the first batch of aviation workers were forcefully relocated from Lagos to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, “their relocation allowances are yet to be paid, and most of those agencies, including FAAN, still have no offices in Abuja.”
Akinjole observed that over 75 per cent of aviation activities happen in Lagos, and wondered how the agencies would operate without office complexes in the state.
“They want to demolish in public interest, but they will now be the beneficiaries of these properties. But this is our common patrimony, and we will fight it out. We all know the challenges members of staff of other agencies, who were relocated to Abuja, are facing.
“For instance, workers of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) that are in Abuja do not have offices of their own, while those in NSIB were told to be working from home, here in Lagos. FAAN does not have its own office in Abuja, yet they want to push everyone to where there is no accommodation for workers,” he said.
The union leaders, however, assured that the unions would frustrate every move by some people in government to convert public property into personal assets.
NUATE member, Safiya Araga, also accused the minister of maltreating the workers, while pursuing phantom projects in the industry.
She said, ideally, there should be adequate provisions for the workers before they are relocated outside present stations.
Araga urged the incoming administration to audit activities of the minister in the past eight years, alleging that the sector had been stagnant for about 10 years.
She said: “We had gigantic policies that never came to fruition in the last eight years. The NAMA case is a terrible one. Till date, NAMA uses a rented apartment in Abuja.
“For the past eight years, we have not been encouraged by this government. What does the Labour Act say about relocation? The workers need to wake up, defend their work life and their families. We should all be on standby. A people united can never be defeated,” she said.
General Secretary of Association Nigeria Aviation Professionals, Abdulrazaq Saidu, also described the action of the minister in the last eight years as full of “illegalities.”
Saidu said Sirika’s failure to constitute Board of Directors in various agencies contravened the Acts setting up those agencies, and the directive of the Presidency.
Secret recruitments by Sirika
It was reported recently that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has secretly employed over 380 people in the service without due process since 2015.
Verified documents showed that over 90 percent of those employed came from the northern region, with President Muhammadu Buhari’s State of Katsina, alongside Kaduna and Kano taking the lion’s share of the scandalous recruitment.
Hadi Sirika is also from Katsina State.
The report said that such secret recruitments had not stopped even though such exercises were neither approved by the Federal Government, nor were they advertised.
A document titled, ‘Some names of persons employed in Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in 2023,’ showed that out of 54 already given employment letters, 36 names had no state of origin attached to them.
It was observed that out of the 36 names, only a handful was from the Southern part.
A chilling revelation showed that the secret employment had been going on since August 2015 when Sirika took over as Minister of Aviation and has continued till date.
In the list of employment for 2023, it was observed that the least staff number for the new employees so far is NCAA/P.2078 while the highest Staff Number is NCAA/P.2229. That means that more than 141 people have been employed.
A source reportedly claimed that “from 2015 till date, there have been no job adverts. There have been no interviews. Yet, they have been employing many people and more than 90% are from the North.”
According to the source, it is more worrisome that “most of them are not even qualified”.
“A lot of them are being given very high salary grade levels above the existing and much more experienced staff,” the source alleged.
From the analysis of the employment lists marked ‘Confidential’ with state of origin attached to each name – Katsina State was allocated – 32 slots; Kaduna State -27; Kano -23; Yobe – 10; Borno – 9; Jigawa – 7; Gombe – 6; Bauchi – 6; Ondo – 6; Kogi – 7; Delta – 5; Adamawa – 3; Ogun – 3; Sokoto – 3; Benue – 3; Abia – 3; Kebbi – 3; Nasarawa – 3; Rivers – 2; Niger – 2; Taraba – 2; Enugu – 2; Zamfara – 2; Abuja – 1; Plateau – 1; Edo – 1; Kwara – 1; Imo – 1; Lagos – 1 and Bayelsa – 1.
Ebonyi, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Osun, Ekiti and Oyo States were not given any slot in the alleged secret employment.
Controversial N12 Billion firefighting trucks
Controversies are still trailing the recent commissioning of 10 high-capacity firefighting vehicles reportedly worth over N12 billion by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
Sirika, in a tweet posted on his official Twitter page on Sunday, April 2, announced that he had commissioned “ten firefighting trucks” costing over N12 billion.
“Just commissioned 10 firefighting trucks, total cost of over N12bn, more to come in due course. Safety has been the Buhari focus in Aviation, since 2015. Hitherto FAAN has not bought new trucks in 15 years,” the minister tweeted.
While some Nigerians lauded the move, describing it as a step towards improving Nigeria’s safety and emergency response across airports in the country, several Nigerians, including a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, expressed concerns about the actual cost of the vehicles.
Some Nigerians also called on the minister to be more accountable and transparent by also providing the public with the specification of the vehicles.
In a statement by FAAN’s spokesperson, Faithful Hope-Ivbaze, the authority said the Lion Volkan 6×6 Brand, Major Aerodrome Rescue and Fire Fighting Vehicles (MFFV), have the capacity to carry 14,000 litres of water, 1,700 litres of foam, 250kg powder capacity each, and monitors the discharge rate of between 6,000 litres to 10,000 litres per minute.
According to the statement, the trucks would be deployed to the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano respectively.
With an acceleration rate of 0-80 km per hour in 30 seconds, the agency explained that each of the trucks possessed the limitless capacity to discharge while in motion and that they are also equipped with under chassis nozzles to tackle running fuel fire.
In her reaction, Mrs Ezekwesili wrote: “Hmmm. These fire trucks must be diamond-plated within and without, Mr. Minister @hadisirika ! At the official @cenbank exchange rate, each truck cost almost $2.4 million? How?”
“Now I know why some of your folks deride the Due Process-Public Procurement reforms. I get it now,” she added.
In another tweet, the former Education Minister said: “@hadisirika , in furtherance of the Open Governments program which your @NigeriaGov administration signed to, please share the full specification details of the fire trucks procured.
“I volunteer to do a Public Due Process review of this transaction for you. Let’s do it.”
Another twitter user, Ikechukwu Oyemike, in a reaction to Mr. Sirika’s post, said: “It will be very helpful if we know the specs of these firefighter trucks as you called them.”
“Research so far has shown that in the most expensive scenario, one truck will cost $1.5 million and at CBN rate, it will be about N690 Million excluding logistics & training,” he wrote.
Similarly, @Sosodef said: “This is absolute madness. How can you buy 10 fire trucks for N12bn @1.2bn each?
“Fire trucks don’t work well without a direct source of water which we don’t have in most places. This looks like a China truck and from my find the one that holds 12000 litres is about $80,000. Why would you pay N1.2bn for one truck? This is insane.”
“Can you disclose who got this contract and the company’s directors?” a user who tweets via the handle @asiyarodrigo noted.
Another Twitter user, Ceekay, said: “I know trucks to an extent, this product is not a product that will cost anything close to N1b.”
“Sadly, the Minister came in as an insider and professional but clearly missed the runway and crash landed on his promises to the industry at large”
Where are the governing boards of agencies?
Perhaps one of the issues that has agitated aviation workers the most is the conspicuous absence of governing boards of directors for the agencies. President Buhari had six years ago approved replacements for the former boards but the new ones are yet to be inaugurated, allegedly in preference for “a one-man” leadership at the helm.
The responsibilities of the board include fixing the terms and conditions of service for employees, review of yearly reports of the management for submission to the President, presenting yearly budget estimates of the agency to the minister, record-keeping, and audit of the agency among others.
Stakeholders alleged that the governing boards were deliberately kept at bay to enable the minister to gain “overbearing control” of the five aviation agencies, and it has slowed the pace of growth and eroded checks and balances in the aviation sector.
A union leader in the industry, Olayinka Abioye, is one of those that felt at ease having an aviator finally mount the cockpit of Nigerian aviation in 2015.
Abioye, like others, has been the least impressed with the almost eight years of flight. He affirmed that though the minister enjoyed optimum support of stakeholders, attempts to implement unpopular and outdated ideas were his undoing.
He said: “Sadly, the Minister came in as an insider and professional but clearly missed the runway and crash landed on his promises to the industry at large. It’s so painful for some of us who love him so much, to witness these episodes of unfulfilled promises. On the scale of 1 to 10, I will score the minister ‘4’.”
Abioye noted that the minister scored high on Abuja runway rehabilitation. However, the same could not be said of the rehabilitation of the Kaduna International Airport terminal that got “humongous” votes and yet uncompleted to date.
He added that Sirika showed some commitments in terms of employees’ well-being only “when it suited him”.
He did help former Nigeria Airways’ workers to secure their severance package and he also attempted to secure NAMAs Service Conditions “because Air Traffic Controllers threatened industrial action.”
“So many waters had passed under the aviation bridge so much so that if truly the Minister loved the workers as the drivers to help him crystalise his lofty goals, he ought to have paid attention to workers welfare, including their happiness since it is often said that a disgruntled worker is an accident waiting to happen.”
Another renowned labour leader in the country’s aviation sector, Abdulrazak Saidu, also took a swipe at the Federal Executive Council for backing the illegality of denying aviation agencies a properly constituted governing board for the almost eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari’ government.
Condemning the refusal of Sirika to inaugurate the governing boards despite the uproar from different stakeholders, Saidu, who is the General Secretary of Association Nigeria Aviation Professionals, came down heavily on FEC in particular for giving support to the minister by continuing to approve huge funds to the ministry despite the absence of the boards.
According to Saidu, the FEC, rather than challenge the minister, continued to release money for the award of contracts without querying him in the absence of the boards that would have served as checks and balances in the sector.
He said, “Why will the FEC keep on approving money for contracts for the minister without querying the absence of boards? The Acts that created the agencies have provisions for the boards that are supposed to be involved in their day-to-day running. They did not question those shenanigans and they continued to approve money.”
The labour leader noted that though the minister started well, he accused Sirika of appointing many aides who had no knowledge of the workings of the aviation
sector.
