By Lawani Mikairu & Daniel Eteghe

The Federal Ministry of Aviation should be scrapped and the Ministry of Transport should be made to supervise the various sectors in the transportation business. This is the position of Captain Dele Ore, Chairman of Aviation Round Table (ART), an organisation made up of aviation specialists.

Captain Ore made the call on behalf of ART  during a press briefing  with aviation correspondents at Ikeja.
The group believes that having an Aviation ministry is a duplication of the functions of the Ministry of Transportation which is supposed to oversee road, air and water transportation.

According to Captain Ore, “it was a realisation of the correct thing to do that led to the merger of the ministries of Aviation and Transport in 2007, alongside the ministries of Information and Communication. Moreover, there is no basis for merging the agencies that were de-merged in the recommendation of Vision 2010 Report in 1997 and the Aviation Safety Reforms Report of 2006.”

Captain Ore also contended that aviation is an international business with laid down standards and recommended practices by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

He said the ECOWAS Parliament in 2000 recommended that ECOWAS member-states should not appoint ministers to preside over Aviation ministry, rather, a minister in charge of transportation should be in charge with specialists overseeing the various sectors in the transportation business viz land, air and water transportation.

While praising the current leadership of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) headed by Dr. Harold Demuren, he believes that emphasis should not be only on safety, which is the current obsession of the present leadership.

He said that there is need to pay more attention to economic regulation of the sector. Captain Ore also recommended the complete privatisation of the airports in the country rather than remodelling of the existing ones.