Activities are obviously rebounding across the country’s aviation sector like others as substantive ministers have been appointed to steer the ships of the different ministries and the sectors under them.

It is no more news that aviation, one of the most sensitive sectors, will be supervised and managed at least in the next four years by Festus Egwarewa Keyamo, a fiery Nigerian lawyer, a human rights activist and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) as the new minister.

The appointment of Keyamo has sparked different reactions from different interest groups, in view of the myriad of controversies that have confronted the sector in the recent past owing to many questionable policies.

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Without drawing back the hands of the clock, the entire sector has been surviving on one leg while the various participants, including the airlines, the government agencies, ground handling companies and other allied businesses have been struggling to remain in business in view of the wrong policies of the previous government.

The mixed reactions that have been trailing the appointment of Keyamo can be traced to the past unpleasant experiences suffered through some unfriendly policies implemented or attempted to be implemented by the then minister which boomeranged in view of their anti-friendly tendencies.

Among such stalemated issues included: the airports concession project, the troubled national carrier, relocation of the head offices of the aviation agencies’ head office to Abuja from Lagos, the untidy aviation roadmap, infrastructural decay, unbalanced appointments and recruitments, lingering litigations and many more.

With all these issues on ground, it may be difficult for anyone to gloss over them and still expect to achieve much in the area of transformation of the sector.

Obviously, the new minister has so many factors tilting to his advantage such as his age, smartness and activism which may make it easier for him to blend with the unions and all stakeholders.

Agreed that Keyamo may not have the aviation experience, his background as a lawyer, a SAN for that matter, may be for the good of the sector in view of many lingering litigations hanging on the neck of the Federal Government for years.

Most of the litigations can be traced to incompetency on the parts of those whose responsibility it is to negotiate business agreements with private investors on behalf of the Federal Government.

The incompetency of this few is what led to the bad image created for Nigeria amongst both local and international investors who have tagged the Nigerian government as untrustworthy when it comes to honouring agreements.

 

Such problematic agreements that have led to litigations included: the unresolved issue in the agreement between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited over the number of years BASL, the operator of the MMA2 private terminal at the Lagos airport, is supposed to manage the terminal.

Other outstanding litigations included: the communication breakdown between FAAN and other concessionaires which have discouraged private investors from transacting business with government in particular.

The latest of such litigations that can be traced to bad policy of government is the recent mess created through the questionable decision of the immediate former government to single handedly picked Ethiopian Airlines as its technical partner in the Nigeria Air project which forced the Nigerian Airlines to drag the government to court.

All these litigations have really slowed down the growth and development of the sector in the areas of private-driven investments due to lack of trust.

While there are many more lingering problems hindering the seamless progress of the sector which the previous ministers could not resolve, it is hoped that the new minister will give priority to these legal tussles by using his professional callings to resolve them in order to give a clean bill of health to the business environment in the sector.

Being able to achieve this will no doubt set the pace for the smooth transformation and growth of the sector on one side, and the subsequent resetting of the system on the other.

 

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