If there is any minister that has operated without respect to the rule of law in the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari led government, the minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika absolutely deserves the title.
Apart from being the longest serving minister of aviation whose eight years tenure at a stretch comes to an end in about three months time, Sirika will be remembered for being the only one that ran the affairs of the sector under the ministry of aviation for eight years solely without constituting boards for all the aviation agencies.
Despite all pleas and directives from even higher authorities, Sirika stood his ground and refused to constitute the boards on the flimsy excuses that some names on the lists of the recommended board members did not meet the requirements.
Key players had on several occasions have argued that in as much as the Acts establishing the agencies which clearly spelt it out that they are governed by boards–have not been repealed, it would be illegal to do otherwise.
For the eight years of the Buhari government, the aviation sector was denied this important arm of governance which in most cases government officials rely on to provide feedback on specific issues and for the sake of transparency and accountability.
The agencies affected by the high handedness on the part of the minister are: the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigeria’s regulatory authority; the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET).
One of the functions of the Boards in any agency is that they have the opportunity to research and make recommendations that will guide government officials to make inform decisions when the need need arises.
Unfortunately, despite being established with the full complements of governing boards, the aviation agencies have been allowed to function in the last eight years without the boards while the minister performed all the roles unhindered.
The refusal to constitute the boards have been attributed to many controversial crisis confronting the sector which key players said would have been greatly minimized as the presence of the boards would have checkmate any excesses of the minister.
Commenting on the lapses created by the absence of the boards, the managing director of Centurion Security Services, Group Captain John Ojikutu,retired, while describing the boards as the intermediaries between the ministry and the agencies, further identified the boards as constituted body empowered to serve as checks and balancing gages between the policy makers and the executors.
He used the opportunity to call out the minister saying: “What has been happening in this particular administration is an affront of the policy maker who also stand out as the executor with no other authority to check him or his performance, not even the sector’s regulatory authority.
“He sets exams for himself, write the exams, mark it by himself, awards marks for himself and announce the results; where is this done? You expect the National Assembly whose responsibility it is to oversight these performance to raise objections to enforce the provisions in the Civil Aviation legislative Act, no, they would not because they benefit from what has become Institutional Corruption in the Nigeria MDAs.
“That the implementation of all the listed developments in the sector have been left till the end of this administration unfulfilled shows the lack of seriousness of those in the management of the sector. The listed items will end up the way Virgin Nigeria ended up even if the same political party finds itself back into the administration of the government. Strongman PDP established Virgin Nigeria, and PDP Stronger man successor disbanded it. We shall then go back to where we started.”
A foremost female aviation analyst, Sindy Forster in her reaction emphasized the role of the boards to among others ensure policies and implementation are well thought through and executed.
According to her; “One man making all the decisions, driving through his agenda, despite any other opposing views, is never likely to generate positive outcomes. Not fully following through with stipulations laid out by law, or circumventing the spirit and intent of the law, should not be considered acceptable in an industry where adherence to regulations is sacrosanct. Such behaviour should be sanctioned and not allowed to be repeated in future.”
