Reuben Adeyi
7 August 2008
opinion
Lagos — The controversy that the N19.5billion aviation intervention has generated may be with us for a while because of its many dimensions. The first of the dimensions is the significance of the Safe Tower project, among other projects that the money should fund to guarantee the safety of our airspace.
Second is the power play that the investigation of the aviation fund has triggered. Third, the intrigues. A recent report at least laid bare two of the three dimensions of the aviation fund controversy, that is, the power play and intrigues. The background to the fund shows that it was floated with noble intentions and had it been appropriately sourced and deployed, the on-going controversy, and the attendant power play and intrigues, would have been needless. When the Federal Government raised a committee headed by Air Vice Marshal Paul Dike to look into the problems in the aviation sector following the spate of air crashes that bedeviled the sector between 2005 and 2006, one of the recommendations of the committee was that N48billion be released to the sector in order to take care of infrastructures of the four international airports located in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano.
Although N19.5billion was grossly inadequate to tackle the problems in the sector, given the amount recommended by the Dike Panel, that was what the Federal Executive Council, FEC, approved with a specific instruction that the money should be sourced (as loan) from the Natural Resource Development Account. But for reasons best known to them, the then minister of aviation, Professor Babalola Borisade, the then managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Yusuf Mohammed, and his counterpart in the National Airspace Management Authority, NAMA, Mr. Roland Iyayi including the then Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo - Iweala in clear contravention of the FEC directive, allegedly sourced N6.5 billion of the N19.5billion from a bank, thus committing FAAN which was used as collateral for the loan to huge repayment commitments. That was the first leg of the problem. The second leg of the problem was in the deployment of the money. The contract for the Safe Tower project awarded to AVSATEL, Vienna and Abuja , was alleged to have been inflated. Besides, due process was said to have been violated in the signing of the contract in June 2006, as the Bureau for Monitoring and Pricing Intelligence did not sight the bill of quantity before the contract was consummated. The contract was meant for the refurbishment of the four airport towers, namely, Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano, but aviation experts believe that the scope should have been widened to accommodate the refurbishment of some other navigational facilities at the airports as the N6.4 billion for which the contract was awarded was enough to do so. Given the emergency situation that warranted the award of the contract for the Safe Tower project, it would have been expedient for the contractor, AVSATEL, to mobilise to site and execute the contract in good time. But five months after the contract award, that is, November by the contractor. This was clearly attested to by Fani-Kayode in his testimony at the Senate hearing on the aviation fund when he said that the contractor had to be pushed to honour its obligations on the contract.
It turned out also that Fani-Kayode was the whistle blower on the irregularities that attended the sourcing of the N6.5billion part of the aviation and the Safe Tower contract award. "Whilst fast-tracking the project, I still had some deep concerns about some aspects of the contract and its funding. This informed my setting up a technical committee headed by Captain Shehu Iyal (senior special assistant to Mr. President on aviation) to look into the details of the contract, its funding and the execution of the project itself", the former aviation minister told the Senate hearing.
According to Fani-Kayode, a number of controversial issues were raised and disturbing revelations were made in the final report of that committee. The report indicted Borisade, Muhammed and Iyayi for sourcing the N6.5billion outside a facility not recommended by FEC and, in the process, committing FAAN to huge repayment commitments as to compromise its operations, as well as for not following due process in the award of the contract. Nevertheless, the report urged that the Safe Tower project be continued because of its significance to the nation's airspace. The report was forwarded to Obasanjo who took further action by directing that it should be sent to the National Security Adviser for review. The review was said to have been on the recommendation of Fani-Kayode who believed that Borisade did not have sufficient hearing by the Iyal Panel and that the error must be corrected. The report of the review which was not out until June 2007, about one month after Obasanjo regime left office, upheld the recommendations of the Iyal Panel but curiously was silent on the indictment of Muhammed, FAAN erstwhile MD. The Senate hearing on the aviation fund inevitably unearthed the NSA Report. However, while the Senate investigation of the aviation fund is a step in the right direction, at least, to fully understand the problems in the sector and identify the way forward, the probe is believed in some quarters to have been instigated by some forces to stop the alleged move to appoint Borisade as chief of staff, as well as the president's presumed move to return Fani-Kayode as aviation minister in an imminent cabinet reshuffle, and truncate his gubernatorial bid in Osun.
The forces against Borisade are reportedly well entrenched in the Presidency because are said to they have an alternative candidate for the chief of staff job and it serves their interest to use the Senate probe and prosecution by the EFCC to rubbish the former minister and achieve their goal.
Those against Fani-Kayode, it was learnt, include some people whose payment for the man because of his influence in the National Assembly to instigate the probe by the upper house in the hope that it will end up indicting Fani-Kayode.
The forces even reportedly went a step further by attempting to stall the release of the two former ministers on bail after they had been arraigned before the court .The nation is anxiously awaiting the report of the Senate probe . But while the saga continues, some questions appear to be begging for answers. Whereas one finds logic in the arraignment of Borisade in the light of his indictment by the panels that investigated the aviation fund, alongside Iyayi, what purpose does it serve that the man (Fani-Kayode) who blew the whistle that led to the uncovering of the alleged illegalities committed in the sourcing and administration of the part of the aviation fund, and was never indicted by the panels, is being harassed with the Senate probe,the EFCC and arraignment in court? Is this the best way to reward a person who spent only seven months in the saddle at the aviation ministry and succeeded in stopping air planes from falling off the sky? At least two instances will suffice on how Fani-Kayode tried to entrench transparency in the sector. One, he stopped payments for jobs that did not follow due process. Two, two SUVs improperly received from the contractor handling the Safe Tower project ostensibly for monitoring by an official on behalf of the aviation ministry were returned to NAMA on the former minister's instruction. Should this erstwhile minister be unduly punished because some forces opposed to his return as minister and gubernatorial bid want it so?
Even the EFCC needs to put its house in order if the leadership of the commission desires public applause. For instance, the shoddy arrest of the two former ministers at the National Assembly where they went voluntarily was not a credit at all. Most people including the Senate condemned the approach. The commission stands to lose nothing if it had invited them and waited in vain before ordering their arrest, unless it wants to tell us that our system does not presume a suspect innocent until proven guilty.
Then came their arraignment before a Chief Magistrate in an Abuja suburb apparently looking for a way of securing a 14-day detention order as a way of covering their untidy investigations. The law says investigation must be completed before any arrest but the new EFCC is doing the contrary. This is putting the cart before the horse. The public desires a better EFCC; after all' Farida Waziri is a retired DIG as well as a trained lawyer. Other civilized nations too are fighting corruption and we should learn to follow decent and lawful ways in fighting the menace here.
Adeyi wrote from Osogbo
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
