Mr. Allen Onyema, the Chairman of Air Peace, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to dissolve the national carrier project as presently constituted.
Speaking on Wednesday morning on Arise TV on the crisis that has engulfed the attempt to set up a national carrier for the country by the past administration, Onyema reiterated that the entire project was short of transparency.
He also debunked most of the allegations levelled against Air Peace by Sen. Hadi Sirika, the former Minister of Aviation, when he appeared on the television station on Sunday.
According to Onyema, who is also the Vice President of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), the documents on the national carrier indicated that all the key management positions, Managing Director, Director of Finance and others, were seeded to Ethiopian Airlines, while Nigerians were appointed as their deputies.
He also said that the agreement reached with the airline on the Nigeria Air project indicated that Ethiopian Airlines was coming in with the sum of $122 million as investment, which was not in cash, but in rentals of its own aircraft that Nigeria Air would deploy to service.
He also clarified that the AON was not afraid of competition, but said the national carrier was no longer fashionable.
He said: “All the management positions in the Nigeria Air were Ethiopians and Nigerians were their deputies. The agreement reached with Ethiopian Airlines said that it would bring in $122 million, but not as cash, rather as rentals. It is only the Nigerian companies that are going to bring money.
“The Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc and MRS are bringing in money. Ethiopian is not bringing a penny for Nigeria. Ethiopian Airlines would pay rentals for their own airplanes. It is written here in black and white. They are going to pay rentals for their own aircraft for five years.
“Ethiopian Airlines is bringing in nothing and they are going to earn 49 percent of your country’s wealth. I call on President Tinubu to immediately dissolve this charade called Nigeria Air and start his own thing.”
Onyema described as “shameful” the attempt by Sirika to portray Air Peace as an incompetent entity, lamenting that his utterances would affect the image of the airline negatively and the industry at large.
He explained that as a House of Representatives member, a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and later the Minister of Aviation for eight years, Sirika was supposed to be the chief marketer of Nigeria, but rather, put the image of the country in the mud through his utterances.
He insisted that a national carrier was a moribund idea, stressing that British Airways and others are now flag carriers.
He explained that a few countries that still own national carriers are doing so with pain.
He said: “Those who are in it are running out of it. The phrase national carrier means government investment. What countries do these days? South Africa is into it and it is bleeding. For over 10 years, no one is willing to touch it because of its baggage. Recently, Qatar Airways bought it. So, they have divested.
“Why will Nigeria in 2023 be going backward? All they need to do is to strengthen the ease-of-doing business so that people of means can come in to invest in the aviation industry. We are not afraid of competition. Nobody is afraid of this national carrier because it will fall and fail like a pack of cards.”
Besides, he accused the former minister and Ethiopian Airlines of contempt of court, stressing that the court order, which restrained the launch of the airline had not been vacated.
