The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has described the planned concession of some airports in the country by Minister of Aviation, Sen. Hadi Sirika, as the joke of the century.
Stating this today during a visit to the secretariat of the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP) at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), the NLC President, Comrade Joseph Ajaero, assured the workers that the plan would be challenged appropriately.
The airports slated for concession by the minister are Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and Abuja.
Also commenting on the planned demolition of some offices belonging to aviation agencies to make room for the aerotropolis, Ajaero said the union would resist it. He said:
- “I don’t think any human can concession the airports here without paying entitlements to the staff. Anybody that takes over here as a concessionaire is spending your money for nothing. We have passed through privatisation and so we know how it works and we know the dangers. So, they are joking.
- “I equally saw the Minister of Aviation talking about illegalising the unions in aviation and that is the highest joke of the century because he doesn’t have such powers. Don’t listen to anybody that is telling you he wants to take over the aviation industry, he can’t without following due process.
- “You can’t shave somebody’s hair in his absence, you can’t say that you concession here and there, there can’t be an abortion without pregnancy, things must follow the due process. That is the way it is, so nobody should panic.”
More concerns: Besides, Ajaero condemned the failure of Sirika to inaugurate Boards of Aviation Agencies for his almost eight years in the saddle.
He insisted that all contracts awarded and appointments made within the period were illegal, null and void.
He alleged that the absence of boards in many of the agencies had no doubt led to some strange practices in the sector.
He mentioned the appointment of some persons from outside the aviation industry to head directorates in the agencies as one of the anomalies perpetrated within the period.
- ”All these issues would have been addressed by the board assuming it was in place. The issue with the interim board is that one is an illegality. An interim board is not the same thing as a board, a properly constituted board by the Act and even in the Act, you see people who are supposed to be the board members and their responsibilities.
- “If anybody is running his office, his wife, his children, his personal assistant as a board, he can’t take over the responsibility of a properly constituted board and until that is done, he can’t even take any major decision, including the concessioning decision.”
Position on Nigeria Air: However, Ajaero insisted that NLC was behind the government in its plan to birth a new national carrier for the country after the liquidation of the former Nigeria Airways in 2003.
He argued that the country required a national carrier that would fly its flag, saying that Nigeria could not continue to rely on foreign carriers.
He said the country could not continue to support foreign airlines to rip it off at the detriment of its local airlines.
He explained that a new national carrier was long overdue for Nigeria, but insisted that due process must be followed by all governments. He said:
- “But, we would demand as a matter of right a national carrier. Nigeria must have a national carrier. We can’t depend on foreign carriers, at a stage trying to give them subvention and we keep on mouthing that the government has no business in business and the government now has business in another person’s business.
- “If an individual is running an airline, the government will be giving such individual money to survive, but the government cannot use debt money to run its own business.”