The three leading unions in the Nigerian aviation industry have expressed their displeasure about the planned merger of the aviation agencies and the ministry of aviation with the ministry of transport. The unions who made their position known   insisted that the merger of the agencies and the ministry by the new administration was not a panacea to the myriad of problems facing the sector.

The unions; the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, NAAPE, and the Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, ATSSSAN, in a joint statement signed byr Captain Tarmongu , Comrades Olayinka Abioye, and Aba Ocheme respectively, said that merging the ministry with transport would weaken its  performance.

The unions recalled that the ministry was merged with the ministry of transport during the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, but did not yield the expected result, which later led to its de-merging by late President Umaru Yar’Adua. They insist that the merging of the two ministries was as a result of ill-advise from some “cabals” in the aviation sector and advised President Buhari of the antics of the cabals.

The unions further said the problem of the sector emanated from the appointment of politicians as ministers in the sector, rather than a technocrat with aviation background.

According to the unions, “It is instructive to state here Mr. President that on the two occasions the Ministries were merged under President Obasanjo due to ill-advise from this same cabal under different pseudonyms, such were reversed to status quo when it was discovered that such decision was not only retrogressive but also capable of further destroying the Sector.

“Mr. President, the fundamental problem in some of our Ministries is corruption and bad leadership arising from failure to do the right thing in the appointment of professionals to run such Ministries, as these Ministries are easier to manage as they were, than when merged to make it unwieldy and complex.

With the level of unemployment in the country, it beats ones imagination that some group of people will be advising government to shrink the Ministries and thus narrow employment opportunities for deserving Nigerians.” The unions declared that the ministry was self-sustaining through the agencies under it and so need not to be merged with any other ministry or agencies.

They  argued that rather than merge the ministry, the government could restructured them to make them more productive and contribute more to the Gross Domestic Products, GDP, of the nation. They  further reiterated their call for the appointment of aviation technocrat as a minister in the sector, stressing that this would further entrench professionalism and curb excessive spending in the system.