Nigeria Air: FG priotizes foreign investors over locals - AON

The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), has revealed that it is against the floating of Nigeria Air due to its planned structure and the national carrier’s choice of Ethiopian Airline as its main investor.

Captain Roland Iyayi, CEO of Top Brass Aviation Limited and former Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), stated during an interview that the members of the AON are not opposed to having a national carrier but are opposed to the structure, which they believe is detrimental to Nigeria’s interests.

Why AON opposes Nigeria Air’s structure

According to Iyayi, the Federal Government (FG) prioritizes foreign investors at the expense of locals.

“What we have said and what we are saying is that the structure and the design that is being put together currently by the Honourable Minister of Aviation is a bit of an issue which we believe is not going to help the Nigeria state in the long term.

“He has come out to tell us that this is intended to be a public private partnership. And indeed if that is the case, we have a situation where we need to query, as a matter of questioning all the issues that have happened to date.

“We have found the need to question the transparency of the project, because we believe that most of the issues that have been raised or that are coming up are not entirely transparent, and we have issues with that.

“We have also come to find out, going through all the documentation that has been provided, that there are undue privileges that are going to be given to this new carrier (Nigeria Air), which the current domestic operators are not enjoying.

“For instance the government is proposing or the Minister is proposing to have 15-year tax moratorium to the national carrier. And again let’s be very clear; this is not a national carrier in the context in which it is being presented; this is actually a flag carrier.

“Simply because if you are bringing in a strategic investor at 49 per cent stakes and you have all the institutional investors one of which is 60 per cent owned by a foreign entity, in the long term what you are putting together is actually a foreign airline being allowed to come into the Nigeria airspace to operate, which is at variance with Article 7 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) convention, which is a cabotage,” he added.

The AON chief insisted that the structure of the planned national carrier was being carried out to benefit individual interest groups and foreigners rather than Nigeria.

“So we are saying that this not in the longer term interest of the Nigerian public.

“In any case, if you also review the outline business case that was put together by the Ministry of Aviation, it will seem to us that this is a contrived outcome which has been decided even long before the arrangement was reached.

“So we believe that ultimately the Nigerian public will not necessarily benefit. There will be unfair competition if you allow a new carrier to come in with special privileges than the other carriers are not getting.

“Again we have a situation where if you look at what the outline business case has presented, it will appear to us that this whole process will end up in a contrived outcome because it would appear that the choice of Ethiopian airline was already decided even before the process started,” Iyayi said.