The Nigerian aviation industry recorded a major milestone yesterday as the country witnessed the first 24-hour full radar coverage of Lagos and Abuja.
Announcing this yesterday, Minister of State (Air Transpor-tation), Ministry of Transpor-tation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, stated that the full coverage was achieved by midnight Wednesday by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) deploying in-house resources at minimal cost.
But experts in the nation’s aviation industry, under the aegis of Aviation Round Table (ART), yesterday accused the minister of usurping the duties of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authorty, (NCAA)
The coverage, Fani-Kayode said, covers 65 nautical miles in Lagos and 40 nautical miles in Abuja while monitoring of the radar covers 100 nautical miles (approximately 160 kilometers radius) of the two airports.
By this development, according to him, all aircraft flying on that axis would be monitored while scheduled night flights between Lagos and Abuja are now possible.
However, Fani-Kayode, explained that “this is the first phase of the total radar coverage envisaged by the Obasanjo administration and the minister promised that in a few months when the Track-On and Safety Tower project is completed, the country would be covered totally by radar.
“Although the process of radar coverage started in 1979, he explained that successive governments ignored its actualisation which resulted in sporadic 3-4 hour monitoring of designated airspace.
“The implication of that neglect was that the country was left unmonitored while foreign airlines overflew the country�s airspace without paying statutory charges resulting in revenue loss,” he added.
The minister hailed the management of NAMA for accomplishing what has been left undone for about 27 years within a few weeks, noting that pilots would be more confident knowing that they were under positive control while in case of accident, search and rescue would be more efficient.
The experts led by Group Captain John Obakpolor (rtd.) who spoke to newsmen at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos decried what they called the minister’s overwhelming influence in NCAA after the Civil Aviation Bill 2006 was passed last November.
They insisted that Fani-Kayode should stop his �undue� interference in the technical areas of the aviation industry, stressing that his role was that of supervisory and policy making, noting that issues of safety regulations should be left to the officials of NCAA who are the experts, without undue interference from those occupying political positions.
“The minister is surrounded by people who are not advising him and giving him technically sound ideas. Safety regulations should be left where it belongs, with the regulator.
�The minister should have been advised that now we have an autonomous safety regulation organisation, just minute to the Director-General that you are concerned about this, please take action,” a member of the group, Captain Dele Ore said.
Ore also said that while the minister is not responsible for safety regulations, he is in charge of economic regulations, noting that both are so interwoven and complement each other, saying that there would be no safety regulation without economic regulation, adding that what International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) is practicing is for the regulatory authority to be without interference from the supervisory body.
The experts noted that the performance of any Minister in the industry is judged by the safety index during his tenure, remarking that due to the “Nigerian attitude”, officials in the Ministry of Transportation would not recognise the fact that NCAA has become autonomous, insisting that they must have to recognise the autonomy of the Authority as provided by the Civil Aviation Bill 2006.
“Your scorecard is your safety index. People in the Ministry will not believe that NCAA is autonomous. It took long time to get the Bill passed,” ART said.
The group said that the Director-General of NCAA, Dr Harold Demuren, who is an aviation expert, should be working hand-in-hand with the minister, and not at cross purposes, adding that even the stakeholders were yet to realise the fact that there was a change in the mode of operation in the industry.
“It will take a long time for them to realise the change, judging from what comes out of their mouth. People in the ministry will find it difficult to believe that NCAA is autonomous – very difficult, it has to be through time, gradually; otherwise you find out that some meetings that were still held in the Ministry before are still continuing, but it shouldn’t be.”
The experts excoriated the Minister for making press statements on the issue of spraying insecticides on aircraft by the foreign airlines, saying that such action was not new and it was not done on only aircraft on the Nigerian route.
According to members of ART, the minister, by criticising that action, is making a mockery of the Nigerian image and exposing his ignorance.
“If the insecticides are injurious to health, WHO (World Health Organisation) will not allow it to be spread. They are non-toxic, so they are nor injurious. They are not used on Nigerian route alone. They have made a mockery of Nigeria,” the experts said.
However, the group commended the Minister for his timely reaction and criticism of the way KLM Airlines allowed a Nigerian deportee to die in its aircraft while en-route to Nigeria, noting that the victim was handicuffed while on transit and remarked that by international law the deportee should not have been handcuffed and attributed the behaviour to the general attitude of negligence the foreign airlines have for Nigerians.
“The Minister was infuriated when a Nigerian passenger died on KLM flight. Without the handcuffs off the person is even likely to die during take-off. The restraint should be removed; the deportee should be given his freedom. They treat us like animals, but we have to show them that we are human beings.”
Jan262007