Kenneth Ehigiator and Gabriel Abatan
23 June 2008
interview
Lagos — Dr. Steve Mahonwu is the Chairman of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON). Mahonwu recently spoke with Kenneth Ehigiator and Gabriel Abatan on the state of the Aviation sector in the country, especially as it affects airline operations.
Three years after the major accidents that hit the industry, how would you assess the state of aviation in Nigeria now?
The issue of the incidence or accident does not give notice. It does not say it would happen tomorrow or next tomorrow. When it chooses to happen, it happens. It is a divine occurrence that only God knows the answer. No super power, no advanced technology in aviation dynamics could put a stop to aviation incidence or accident. There must be an incidence to have an accident. Come what may, the issue of accident is being check-mated and we believe that with the advanced technology coming, the fatality of it would be reduced to the barest minimum.
Are you saying that some of these accidents were not as a result of somebody not doing his job as expected?
The cause, as released by the relevant agency, was human error. It is a question of somebody in the air. For instance, if I want to use this phone to do a particular thing, and I ended up touching another button, it would give me another answer from what I am looking for because everything is now computerised. Because of the advance in technology and the issue of computerised systems in the cockpit, accidents are becoming more frequent than before.
The issue of rising cost of aviation fuel is becoming a clear and present danger for airlines across the world, and Nigeria is not an exception. What do you think the Federal Government could do to mitigate this for airlines in the country?
The Federal Government has no provision. They cannot help themselves. Since independence, Nigeria has been so unfortunate that it has never had a leader who has the skills and dynamism to lead this nation. We never had one. People are always imposed on this nation one way or the other, be it military or the so-called selective election. Since her independence, Nigerians have not had things easy.
You see somebody with a General Certificate degree and you find somebody with Teacher's Grade II bossing the person because you want to make Nigeria unite. It has happened many times in this country and it would continue to happen. Same is going on in the Aviation industry and it is killing the industry.
Are you saying there is no hope for the airline operators?
For instance, airlines in Nigeria buy fuel for as much as N125 per litre.
Even for the common people like yourself and myself, the diesel is about N170 per litre and if you don't have diesel or petrol, you can't leave your house. The airlines must operate. You cannot use water to fuel an engine. You must put the aviation fuel or JET A-1. But JET A-1 is not within the common man's reach. It is easier to get it in Ghana or Abidjan than to get it in Lagos. A nation where we have abundant fuel. Because of our stupidity and because we are born to cheat, this country has never been upright.
This is why those in power do not care whether people will move around or not. If aviation fuel is this expensive, how do you expect people to afford air travel? In the long run, it is the airlines that would suffer the problem of under-capacity or low patronage. The present price of aviation fuel, to say the least, is an overkill for our members. I learnt that the price has even gone as high as N140 per litre, depending on which part of the country you are buying it from.
Have you made any representation to the government as to how this problem could be solved?
The AON as a body would be having a chat with the Presidency very soon over this issue. May be the present occupant of the presidency would listen to us. Whenever we went to Obasanjo when he was the president, he would become your lecturer. He teaches you how to fly an aircraft; he teaches you how to repair an aircraft; he knows everything in the world; he is a professor, and so he refused to listen to any complaint we put before him. So that's the situation. If you go to the Presidency during his time, you would be insulted. We have not tried the new government, but we are going to try them. We have been trying the representatives, now we want to go up. We want to go to Aso Rock and meet the chief occupant and discuss with him over our vision to better aviation in this nation.
What are some of the things you intend to discuss with President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua when you meet with him?
We are going to discuss how the Aviation industry is going to continue. Like the US, after the 911, the American Government gave $350 million to every operator to cope with the aftermath of that incident, be it government or private, to resuscitate the airlines and equip them. Many Nigerian airlines are not flying. Over 10 airlines are grounded and are not flying due to one reason or the other. When there is a crash in Nigeria, the government seizes the licenses of operators.
It doesn't happen anywhere. This is an accident born out of an incidence. For it to happen, there must be a cause. It might be human error; it may be malfunction of the dynamics of the aircraft; it may be as a result of an over-worked people who were bound to be changed. You go to an aircraft, because of non-availability, one person runs the spare parts.
These spare parts have a time frame. May be it would last for four months and you use it for ten months, it would collapse because it has been over-used because of lack of quality. So because of this, it is not guaranteed that spare parts fit for one aircraft and transferred to another aircraft would stand the test of time.
On the issue of spare parts, the government should be able to fund spare parts in this country, where people could buy at a subsidised rate. Government should be able to give willing operators resources to guarantee and back-up their maintenance culture. In 1945 when aviation started in this nation, till date, we have not got a maintenance structure.
Igbinedion tried that in Benin, but it shouldn't have been abandoned if the government was involved. That was one man's project. If the government had been willing and able to assist him, that place would have been a paradise where planes all over the length and breadth of the coast of West Africa would come and undergo maintenance, but it is not so because we are envious. What we are saying is that the Aviation industry must be guided by aviation people.
Those who know much about aviation must get leadership positions in aviation, not imposing somebody from the agricultural sector. If aviators are allowed to manage aviation in this country, we will not have problem.
Aviation has also been seen as one of the sectors where there is so much capital flight out of the economy. Why is this so?
It is the way the government wants it. Who brought this capital flight into the nation in the first place? Who gave foreign airlines the way to come in? Is it not the government? Have you ever given a way for an airline to come into the nation? Do you have the power? It is the government. So, capital flight will continue as long as government continues to give foreign airlines unnecessary extra frequencies and multiple entry rights which do not happen anywhere else in the world. Let the government empower our members, so that they can compete with their foreign counterparts. That is the only way you can stop capital flight.
So how do you check that in the industry?
To check that in aviation, there must be people who are seasoned in aviation dynamics to work in the Ministry of Aviation. People who understand the game. We don't bring people from the Ministry of Agriculture to run aviation and you expect things to work.
How would you assess the state of infrastructure at our airports today?
It is a continuous thing that requires change. Infrastructure is a dynamic that would not continue to be functional unless it is maintained and changed. When the Murtala Muhammed Airport was hurriedly opened by Obasanjo in 1979, hurriedly because it was not ready. By that time, I know the structure was not ready. Just because he wanted to open it before leaving office, it was opened but the structure was not finished until most of them were re-fitted by Peter Igbinedion. What we have now is for people to come and re-furnish instead of maintenance. You cannot just rub a bit of engine oil on an engine and say you are doing maintenance, what you are doing is cleaning, not maintenance.
Do you agree with government's decision to concession the major airports in the country?
I am not opposed to that. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) believes that the airports belong to them. Airports do not belong to FAAN; the facilities there-in do not belong to FAAN. FAAN was the creation of the government. I happen to be the secretary of the committee in 1976 that created Nigerian Airports Authority (NAA), the forerunners of FAAN. It is the caretaker pattern to take care of government property at the airport. Next time, I'll tell you the history and development of Civil Aviation in this country. We started from 1945 to 2008. From your thinking, you know whether we have failed or how are fair. That's the situation. The airports worthy of concession should be concessioned. I am not opposed to the concessioning because that's the modern thing all over the world.
Demonstrations by the union of FAAN that they don't want it, is not practicable. We have to sell them. Not all, but one or two or three, to see how far, how developed it has become, how result-oriented it has become, before we now know whether we would concession the rest.
What is your impression about the PPP going on now, especially on the new Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2)?
PPP is under Bi-Courtney Aviation. I was once opposed to Bi-Courtney, I mean the AON, when I addressed the pressmen at a press conference. We said we cannot pay their bill. Myself, Captain Joji and few others, said we cannot pay their bills because it was too high. It was more than what FAAN was charging us. The man called us and said we should discuss, which we did and we said we don't want to pay more than what we are paying now. It was agreed and a paper was issued and we all signed. I have a letter asking our members to move there, because everything must be there.
There must not be power failure and it should be well equipped. When you enter there, you will think that you are either in New York City or in Heathrow, London. It shouldn't be like a mad house in Nigeria. Very soon, the electricity would go and a common man would go and put on a generator. Personally, I haven't tasted electricity for about a week. Nobody told us what was happening.
Nobody would ever tell you on radio or television that something is happening. They don't even care, only to bring bill. I have three generators in my house. Is it not madness? In actual fact, we want change in the Aviation industry.
Are you satisfied with the level of regulation in the industry?
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is doing its best, provided they don't go hay wire, because in aviation, most of the things have gone lukewarm. In many conferences and seminars, we ought to talk to them to listen to us because we are outgoing officers.
Based on what you have seen on ground, do you think Nigeria can scale the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) audit currently ongoing?
Verification or audit is a non-influenced business. Nigeria can survive if they would not bribe their way through. Nigerians believe in bribery and corruption.
Some of your members have been designated to fly into the US. I mean such airlines as Bellview, Arik and Virgin Nigeria. Do you think they have the capacity to justify the designation?
The issue of capacity does not even arise. A newly registered airline can fly into the US, but ought to get into mergers and alliances. You can go overseas and get someone to fly it back to you. They have the capacity. If they don't have the capacity, they would not have applied. We believe that those airlines planning to fly to the US have the capacity to do so.
Many of your members are not flying today, what has AON done to ensure that these airlines get back to the skies?
AON did not ground them in the first place. They were grounded by the government through the NCAA for one reason or the other, which does not happen across our border. But when you have an incidence or a crash, your license would be seized. That's stupidity. Aviation is not managed that way. Some people are called political commissioner, political missionary in aviation. I know one victim of a crash. The then Minister of Aviation, Prof Borishade, grounded everything without any investigation.
He doesn't even know the fundamentals that the accident must be investigated to know what the cause was. Before we saw the Black Box, the matter had been concluded and decision taken by the highest organ of government, the minister. That is what I said earlier that if aviation experts manage the aviation business in this nation, all would be well.
How disappointed were you that for three months now, an aircraft has been declared missing in the Nigerian airspace and it has not been found?
I am not very much disappointed because every history has a beginning. I am not very disappointed because the aircraft we are looking for may be hidden somewhere or it might have gone to another country's air space. Nobody is making effort to have any instrument to check this. America can do that for you. You can go to the country to know whether the machine is there. Nobody knows. Some people said the aircraft was flying in one African country.
What is the name of that country? Some people said they are owing the owners. We hear a lot of things, even the Nigerian Press are part of it because they are not sure of what was actually going on.
But we are supposed to have equipment, such as the radar, to have been able to detect the movement of the aircraft in the airspace?
I am not saying that Nigeria should have it; they can borrow. Nigeria can never have money to do that because they steal or share the money, but they can borrow from America, Britain, France, South Africa etc. If somebody is sick, they will fly the person abroad. Why can't they go there and bring them into Nigeria?
What do we do with Search and Rescue in Nigeria, especially in the Aviation industry?
We don't have the facilities. Are they going to get the facilities from their wives or husbands? No! It is the government that would give them. Everything is with the government. I don't believe in saying this or that is not functioning, so we should remove him and put another person there. I believe in going to them and asking what is happening? What do you have and what don't you have? How can we help you?"
There was this case your airlines had with the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) with regards to charges. How far have you addressed the issue?
The matter was charged to court. You remember that when NAMA want to put illegality on us, we went to court and won them in the Lagos High Court. NAMA appealed and because we were not present at the court due to some reasons because we also had another matter in court at Abuja, we had to leave it. So we obeyed the court's judgement. But we did not fail.
What do you think about NAMA's Total Radar Project which we have been told would make our airspace safer?
It would be safer if it is affordable and workable. I am not criticizing them.
Everywhere in the world, the aviation sector is seen as a jump-starter of economic development, therefore, governments pay serious attention to it. What do you advise the Federal Government to do to position the sector to be able to play this role in re-positioning the economy?
The government should bring money and give assistance to all airlines, either governmental or non-governmental; give them opportunity to develop themselves security-wise, help with equipment and facilities, spare parts etc. All those things should be put in place if we want to achieve any economic growth that would be driven by aviation.
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