By Francis Ogwo
The Committee on Aviation in the Nigerian House of Representatives has been urgently mandated to probe its Committee on Aviation on why the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Ministry of Aviation and Ministry of Foreign Affairs patronized foreign airlines in the evacuation of Nigerians stranded abroad as against the use of indigenous carriers.
According to reports, the directive was given after a motion was sponsored by Honorable Mohammad Shamsudeen Bello, member representing Takai/Sumaila Federal Constituency of Kano State and eight other members of the House of Representatives.
This order is in the wake of confirmation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema that Air Peace was denied landing rights by the Canadian government while assuring that Nigeria is already in talks with Canada to allow Air Peace evacuate Nigerians there.
Honourable Shamsudeen Bello, while presenting the motion on behalf of his cosponsors, challenged the action of the Ministry of Aviation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the PTF as a breach of chapter 11 of the 1999 constitution.
In his words, “The economic objective of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the fundamental objective and principles of state policy in section 16(a) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, provides that the state shall harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, dynamic and self-reliant economy for every citizen on the basis of social justice and equity of status and opportunity.”
He stressed that the engagement of those foreign airlines was unjustifiable when there are good airlines competent enough with good fleets that could be engaged for such honorable tasks, insisting it was defrauding Nigerian businesses of opportunities of survival especially at this period of economic downturn when Airlines need support to stay afloat.
He lamented that indigenous airlines like Air Peace, Azman, Max Air, and others, have added value to the GDP of the country and survival of Nigeria’s economic status through the employment of Nigerians.
“Air Peace and Max Air have three Boeing 777 each, and Azman Air recently acquired Airbus A340-600 series, all of which could be deployed for such operations,” while adding that very recently, Air Peace had evacuated Nigerians from South Africa in the wake of the xenophobic attacks in 2019 free of charge, while Max Air has been lifting Hajj participants without hitches.
The PTF, Ministry of Aviation, and Foreign Affairs Ministry in their responses, had confirmed that airlines such as British Airways, Emirates and Ethiopian Airlines were deployed to airlift stranded Nigerians from the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States of America (USA).
The Minister of Foreign Affairs explained why Air Peace was denied landing by Canada while assuring that the Nigerian High Commissioner was making a strong case on why the flight should be allowed.
”It is true that the Canadian government has denied landing rights to the Nigerian carrier that was supposed to undertake the evacuation. Now, this is the case indeed that the Canadian government denied landing rights on the ground that this particular Nigerian carrier did not have a license to undertake commercial flights to that country, and was not known to that country for commercial flights.
“Our High Commissioner in Canada is engaging with the Canadian government on this issue and we are hopeful that we can have the decision reversed. The argument he is putting forward, which is a strong argument, is that this is not a regular commercial flight to Canada for airlifting passengers, but this is an emergency flight and there is a difference between the two and so the negotiations are ongoing and we hope there would be a positive result” Onyema added.
It would be recalled that International Air Transport Association (IATA) had made emphasis that due to the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy and predicting a collapse of over half of the big airlines in the world, the only hope for the survival of airlines in countries across the world to be supported by their governments.
Experts also say the support for Nigeria’s economic growth is a factor of how much money gets back into circulation from business ventures and global deals hence, the kick by the House of Reps.
