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As his final act in office, Nigeria’s departing president allegedly established a bogus airline.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated Africa’s largest oil refinery with the hopes of achieving self-sufficiency and becoming a net exporter of refined petroleum products.
According to the Nigerian legislature, as his final act in office, departing President Muhammadu Buhari established a fictitious airline. Before taking his final bow, Buhari even managed to arrange for a single aircraft to fly with the livery of the nonexistent Nigeria Air.
Buhari entered office in 2015, after serving as president of a junta regime in the 1980s. His victory over President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 was Nigeria’s first electoral setback of an incumbent president.
The BBC pronounced the 80-year-old president’s two four-year mandates a total failure in May, claiming that he left Nigerians “less secure, poorer, and more in debt,” and that he failed to keep his promises to “curtail the rampaging Islamist insurgency in the north-east and tackle widespread corruption.”
Buhari will be succeeded by President Bola Tinubu, a member of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC). Tinubu won a difficult election in February that was heavily criticised by international observers and was not challenged by the other top contenders. Tinubu took the oath of office on May 29.
Buhari and his Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, stated in 2018 that they would build a national airline in collaboration with Ethiopian Airlines, which would own 49 percent of the new venture. Sirika often announced that the launch of Nigeria Air was imminent, pending the resolution of a few legal snags that were never resolved.
Sirika met with Ethiopian Airlines chairman Girma Wake in February to negotiate the much-delayed launch of Nigerian Air. The Nigerian aviation minister exited the conference promising that the airline would be operational before Buhari leaves office.
“With regard to Nigeria Air, yes, we are on track; and by the Grace of God, it will fly before President Muhammadu Buhari leaves office.” “We are on track; Nigeria Air will fly before May 29,” Sirika stated two weeks before Tinubu was sworn in.
On May 26, a Nigeria Air Boeing 737-800 with Nigeria Air markings appeared on a runway in South Africa and later flew to Nigeria. Lawmakers shouted foul, claiming that the airline had yet to begin operations and that the plane displayed just before Buhari left office was a forgery.
African media dug a little more and discovered that the 737 was a ten-year-old Ethiopian Airlines plane chartered for the “unveiling” flight and repainted in the colours of the non-existent Nigerian Air. According to reporters who studied the plane’s registration paperwork, there was no change in ownership, which was confirmed by Capt. Dapo Olumide, the acting managing director of Nigeria Air appointed by the leaving Buhari.
They hurriedly purchased a template airline website with all of the placeholder lorem ipsum content still present.
On Tuesday, Olumide told a Nigerian Senate aviation committee that Nigeria Air still lacks a licence for full flight operations and that the procedure to secure one is in its “early stages.” One of the challenges, according to Olumide, is that Nigeria Air is currently three jets short of the three planes required to obtain a licence.
“The aircraft that arrived and flew away was a legitimate charter flight.” “Any of us here can charter an aircraft if we have a destination wedding in Senegal,” the captain explained.
“You don’t need a licence to do that; you just charter an aircraft, an aircraft you paid for, it will be brought here, take your passengers and off you go, and that’s exactly what we did.” “However, in this case, it was to unveil the Nigeria Air logo,” he explained.
“Ever since 2018, all you’ve seen about Nigeria Air has been pictures and drawings, not the actual aircraft, and we thought it was time to show what the real aircraft will look like, as well as to let shareholders see,” he explained.
Olumide insisted that the Boeing 737 stunt was not meant to deceive the public, but the “social media dimension” came into play, and for some reason, “learned people in the aviation industry” did not counter the rapidly spreading disinformation that portrayed the plane as the property of a fully operational Nigeria Air.
Lawmakers chastised Olumide for neglecting to notify the aviation committee about the intention to charter an Ethiopian plane and paint it with the Nigeria Air insignia, despite the fact that Olumide testified frequently in the Senate and was always treated with “respect.”
According to sources in Nigeria’s Point Blank News on Wednesday, passengers purchased tickets for the maiden Nigeria Air flight, but they were actually Ethiopian Airline employees whose duty it was to bring the 737 home when Olumide finished showing it off. Point Blank News was one of the Nigerian media outlets that saw everything as a purposeful “scam” rather than a misunderstanding.
A letter written to Buhari two weeks before he left office by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Nureni Jimoh demanded that the outgoing president stop Aviation Minister Sirika from violating court orders by operating two unauthorised planes under the Nigeria Air flag. Sirkia allegedly planned to pretend Nigeria Air was operational so that he and Buhari could say they had fulfilled their pledge to start the airline before the president left office.
Nnolim Nnaji, chair of the Nigerian House Committee on Aviation, termed the Nigeria Air launch a “fraud” on Tuesday, pointing out that important partners in the long-running arrangement between the Nigerian government and Ethiopian Airlines had denied all knowledge of the liveried aircraft demonstration flight. This appears to contradict Olumide’s claim that the liveried plane was staged to keep stakeholders engaged.
Bashir Ahmad, a former special communications adviser to President Buhari, argued on Wednesday that the airline project is not a “fraud” since “the Aviation Ministry has made significant progress towards its realisation.”
“Branding has been unveiled, partnerships and agreements have been signed, the majority of operational certificates have been issued, and operational offices have opened.” In response to Nnaji’s criticism, Ahmad stated, “Nigeria Air will fly to make Nigeria proud.”
