By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, Mr Nnolim Nnaji, has responded to the allegation made by the former Minister of Aviation, Mr Hadi Sirika, that he demanded a five per cent equity in Nigeria Air.
Mr Sirika, while on Arise TV on Sunday evening, claimed that the lawmaker declared the controversial national carrier as a fraud because he was not given a stake in the company as a kickback.
“Hon Nnaji asked me that I should give him 5% of Nigeria to carry him along with his people, and I said to him at that time, Honourable, a bidding process has taken place, and some people won. So, I think you should go to those people and ask for the 5 per cent,” he said.
But responding in a statement, Mr Nnaji refuted the allegation describing the former Minister as “a drowning man struggling to grab anything on his way to survive the barrage of attacks he has been receiving since his controversial unveiling ceremony of the so-called Nigeria Air.”
According to him, Mr Sirika was not happy that he had demanded transparency and due process in all matters relating to the aviation sector, especially the Nigeria Air project.
“Ordinarily, l would not have bothered to reply to his allegations of my demand for 5 per cent equity in Nigeria Air as he claimed during his interview on Arise Television, but l believe l owe my constituents and indeed Nigerians a duty to put the records straight.
“It is on record that last year when the Minister announced Ethiopian Airlines as a core investor in Nigeria Air, my committee, which was also inundated with petitions from various stakeholders regarding that announcement, invited the Minister and his team to furnish the committee with the details of the project.
“The committee requested the evidence of the bid process that gave Ethiopian Airlines the award and the full business case as prepared by the Nigerian Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which was supposed to spell out the details of all the investors and their equity contributions.
“Sirika, at that meeting, said Full Business Case was still being worked out by the ICRC and promised to make it available to the committee as soon it was ready, which he failed to do before Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) took the Ministry to court and got injunction restraining it from going ahead with the project,” he explained.
“We suspended our discussions and enquiries on the project the moment the court got involved. Normally when a matter is before the court, the parliament does not discuss it.
“However, on May 20, 2023, l received reports of threats of mass resignations by key personnel of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) due to pressures from the Ministry to give waivers to Nigeria Air to enable it to secure Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) so that it could take off before the exit of the last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I quickly issued a statement warning the former Minister against subverting the authority of NCAA because of its severe consequences on Nigeria’s air transport sector. It is also common knowledge that the Nigerian institutional investors he mentioned as participants have all denied him.
“It is not strange that Sirika came up with these spurious allegations against my person because l consistently demanded that he follow due process.
“He should not deviate from the subject matter. Let him tell Nigerians the truth about the contraption he sold to us as Nigeria Air. Nnolim Nnaji is not his problem,” he further explained.
Aduragbemi Omiyale