By Henry Umoru, ABUJA

The Senate has taken a swipe at what it described as unnecessary controversy generated by the last-minute unveiling of the Boeing 737-800 series aircraft which the Federal Government flew into Abuja for the unveiling of Nigeria Air belongs to Ethiopia Airlines as a gimmick.

Senator Biodun Olujimi, PDP, Ekiti South led Senate Committee on Aviation frowned at the action of the Federal government with regard to the Aircraft yesterday in Abuja during a  meeting between the Committee,  officials of the Ministry of Aviation and other stakeholders in the aviation industry 

The  Committee however wondered why Nigeria as a country should hurriedly unveil the  Air Nigeria when the necessary ground works had not been done.

Specifically, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Olujimi expressed the disgust of the committee when she said that the entire arrangement of the Air Nigeria was shrouded in suspicion.

The Senate Committee raised it that the problems include the controversy over the trapped aviation fund, the purchase of fire trucks at very exorbitant costs, and ignoring the concerns raised by unions and Nigerian operators in the sector in preference for Ethiopian Airlines as the preferred bidder.

The assertion by the immediate past Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika to Nigerians that the aircraft was Air Nigeria plane and four others were expected was seen by the Committee as mere propaganda to raise the hope of Nigerians.

“The unveiling has created integrity question. You are not standing well, you have an image problem”.

The Committee acknowledged that Air Nigeria is a good concept, but regretted that Nigerians do not want to see gimmicks, saying “go and wash clean”.

Meanwhile, attempts by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation, Dr Emmanuel Meribole to explain that Air Nigeria was a  Public Private Partnership (PPP) project and that it was really did not assuage members of the Committee

Dr. Meribole who noted that he was hearing most of the concerns raised by the committee for the first time, said that the unveiling was to see the Nigerian logo on an aircraft which he said became necessary to “counter negative publicity on social media”.

Answering questions from the Senators, the Managing Director of Nigeria Air, Dayo Olumide who noted that the Aircraft was a Chartered one from Ethiopia for a few days and to show what an aircraft looks like in Nigerian flags, said that Air Nigeria was launched in 2018 and his own responsibility was to secure operating certificate for the airline.

Olumide said, “It is a pleasure to be here and to finally make our position known where I can clarify all the misconceptions regarding Nigeria Air as it pertains to the technical aspects of it.

“As you know this airline was launched in… and the logo in 2018. Several things have transpired since then that have nothing to do with me.

“I was invited last February, my mandate is to secure an air operating certificate for the airline not necessarily to operate the airline but to secure a licence to fly. And that is entirely my responsibility.

“I will like to address your question first before I go on.  The aircraft that came in and left was a legitimate charter flight. Anyone of us here if we have a destination wedding in Senegal, we can charter an aircraft. You don’t need to have a licence to do that, you just charter an aircraft, an aircraft you paid for it, it will be brought here, take your passengers and off you go.

“And that is what we did. But in this case, it was to unveil, ever since 2018, all you have ever seen about Nigeria Aircraft were pictures, drawings not the real aircraft, and we thought it was time to show what the real aircraft will look like and also to let shareholders, you see we have institutional investors, they are not in aviation, but they are putting their money for 10 or 15 years and to exit may at the premium. So they need to see what the actual aircraft will look like.

“So we brought it in here to show them what the aircraft will look like. Then the social media dimension came into it. 

“It is an Ethiopian-registered one. Why is it Ethiopian-registered? To operate aircraft in Nigeria, they must be Nigerian registered; on 5th  November.  That aircraft was not 5th November registered because it was a chartered flight and

 it came in with just a few day’s clearance and off it went.

“For us to get that licence which is my mandate, we must among other things have three aircraft before the NCA will give us a licence and those three aircraft must be Nigerian registered aircraft.

“There are five steps that one goes through to have a licence. We have gone from the first one to the second one but the problem is that when you change what we call post holders,  post holders is a technical term for director of maintenance, Chief pilot, when you change them and replace them completely, you have to go back to phase one to interview them to be compliant to the authority, to the civil authority. But haven gone back to phase one doesn’t mean you have done anything thing wrong. That is a correct and normal process.

“So when this aircraft came on a chartered flight, everybody said we have launched Nigeria Air.

There are learned people in the aviation industry who could have countered that when social media came out, they chose not to.”