The aviation roadmap unveiled by the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, seven years ago, has continually faced scrutiny. It has been a subject of one controversy or another and industry experts are beginning to doubt whether most of the projects under the roadmap will see the light of the day in the remaining six months of the present administration.
Sirika is no doubt fastidious about delivering the projects under the roadmap including the national carrier; the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility; the Aviation Leasing Company (ALC); Aerotropolis, Airport concession and the development of agro-allied cargo terminals.
Experts say the roadmap components are so far-reaching that would drive the development of the sector but its implementation has been a subject of intense controversy, suspicion and misgivings in the aviation industry.
Industry stakeholders have also questioned the failure of the government to deliver any of the projects in the last seven years and doubt if something meaningful would be achieved in the next seven months.
For instance, the National Carrier project was mooted as soon as the Buhari’s administration took over in 2015. Though the government was commended for settling partly the gratuities and arrears of the retirees of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways, the move to set up the national carrier has dragged until now.
Now that the government has made progress with floating Nigeria Air, the misgivings have grown further over the shareholding structure adopted by the federal government which gives the controlling share to Ethiopian Airlines (ET).
The government has defended the choice of ET, which is to have 49 per cent stake in Nigeria Air, saying it was only ET that met the deadline for the submission of a proposal to be the foreign technical partner for the national carrier.
Furthermore, government said its share in the airline would not be more than five per cent while SAHCO, MRS and other Nigerian entrepreneurs would have the remaining 46 per cent.
Now the project seems to be taking a new dimension with the suit instituted by the trustees of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) at the Federal High Court in Lagos challenging the decision of the government to select Ethiopian Airlines as the equity partner for the airline.
They argued that selecting ET to manage the proposed airline would open the domestic market to the airline and decimate the local carriers.
The airports’ concession, another critical component of the roadmap, has also been faced with numerous challenges right from inception.
Unions in the aviation sector, including pensioners, vehemently oppose the move to concession the four airports – Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja; Port Harcourt International Airport and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano.
Sirika, in October, announced the preferred and reserved bidders for some of the airports.
The minister noted that out of the four airports and cargo terminals as approved for concession under the programme, only three could meet the deadline of September 19, 2022.
Even this ran into muddy waters as Sifax Group of Companies Limited has asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to disqualify Tav Airports Holding Company and GMR Airport Limited from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) concession bid.
And now comes another controversy with the alleged plan  to demolish some offices of the aviation industry in Lagos for the implementation of the Airport City project.
The minister had earlier ordered all aviation agencies to relocate their headquarters to Abuja, which has been complied with as the CEOs of the agencies immediately relocated with some Directors of the agencies but a large percentage of staff of the agencies are still in Lagos offices.
During their recent congress the unions in the industry- National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association (ATSSSAN) and Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP)- challenged the move to demolish the buildings and the implementation of the roadmap and called for its stoppage.
They called on the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to conduct a comprehensive forensic audit on it.
“For inexplicable reasons, none of the above projects has been delivered up till now. It is, therefore, not surprising that the hon. minister is presently in a frenzy in an effort to deliver these projects, being that this administration is at its twilight. This rush to deliver at all cost has expectedly occasioned suspicion and a plethora of missteps which if not corrected will spell doom for the aviation industry in Nigeria, and which may prove exceedingly costly to amend in future.
