Don’t kill aviation industry with ethnicity

One is constrained to quickly caution the Minister of State, Air Transport, Mr. Felix Hassan Hyat, on his sole agenda to destabilise the currently stable aviation industry through ethnic cleansing. This minister, on assumption of duty, did not hide his agenda to bring ethnic colouration into the sensitive sector, having been wrongly informed that a particular ethnic    group from one of the geo-political zones, dominates the industry.

This minister had earlier told our legislators a couple of weeks ago while defending his ministry’s 2008 budget of his willingness to embark on balancing the job equation. It looks ridiculous that the minister’s idea of restructuring programme is to champion the cause of Federal Character Commission.

This is a wrong approach to solving perceived industry problems and this agenda is obviously contrary to the thinking of President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua. For the avoidance of doubt, the issue of federal character had never worked in this sector. Let me remind this minister that in 2002, all the parastatal chieftains during the tenure of Dr. (Mrs.) Kema Chikwe were northerners. 

Chikwe had at a meeting with the officials of the Federal Character Commission in Lagos made it abundantly clear that the issue of ethnic balancing would not work in the hi-tech industry. Chikwe further remarked that she was comfortable working with these professionals that were incidentally from the same geo-political zone. She stated that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on inspection, would not be interested   in which ethnic group is doing what, but the international body would want to know if the Nigerian aviation industry conforms with the   international norms.

Heaven did not fall then and no one made issue out of this dominance by the North. This industry is just stabilising since the 2005 and 2006 air accidents and people like us with high interest in the industry would not watch Hyat and his cohorts to destabilise it for their selfish agenda. He should be told that the industry is being driven by high skilled professionals, and where they come from is irrelevant, once they can deliver the required safety related services. 

For the information of the minister, most of the traffic controllers in the country today are from the south, even with the shortfall of manpower, can we then raise controllers overnight to balance the federal character equation; ditto the engineers in   all the agencies?

We want to continue to enjoy the stability in the industry. This last 12 months have been peaceful and fruitful that must be sustained by all means to bring back the public confidence in air travel.

Kamoru Alani Yunusa,
Aviation Consultant,
Ilorin.

A different thought on Ribadu’s exit

Many Nigerians are not comfortable with the seeming exit of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu from the EFCC. The general thought is that Ribadu is the sole agent in the fight against corruption in the country and as such they think the fight on corruption will die a natural death once Ribadu is no longer at the helm of affairs at EFCC. But we need to objectively look at this issue.

If corruption is well defined, Ribadu’s antecedent is nothing but one filled with corruption. It was this same Ribadu that was used by Obasanjo for all dirty political jobs of clearing the way for the emergence of Yar’Adua.

Despite huge amount of money wasted on power generation, turn around maintenance of refineries and supposed road rehabilitations, aside several other cases of looting associated with the Obasanjo adminis-tration, no single probe was conducted by Ribadu into these brazen acts of looting.

The recent revelation on Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello pertaining to request for bribe further reveals that the Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC is nothing but a pro-Obasanjo structure. From facts provided by EFCC itself, it was glaring that the EFCC was aware of the illegality perpetrated by Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello.

As EFCC is prosecuting Ibori, we expect it to be probing into billions of Naira donated by him and other governors to the presidential campaign of President Yar’Adua for a true anti-corruption war.

Ribadu’s EFCC, as it is currently, is not a genuine anti-corruption body that can fight corruption to a standstill in this country. It was set up to serve Obasanjo and Ribadu is surely doing the bidding of Obasanjo and that is why I personally do not feel disturbed by his seeming exit from the EFCC.

Kola Ibrahim,
kmarx4live@yahoo.com