Aviation unions at war over Okewu secondment

All is not well with unions in the aviation sector following open confrontation against the president of Air Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSAN), Benjamin Okewu.

The bone of contention began according to union petitions with the secondment of the President to one of the aviation parastatals, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB).

ATSSAN members in the Nigeria civil aviation authority (NCAA) who has the most active members frown at the fact that ATSSAN had become ‘factionalised and open to political use’

Equally, other Unions the national association of aircraft pilots and engineers (NAAPE) and the Nigeria Aviation Professionals Association (NAPA) insist in written pet rioting to the minister of air transport and the presidency that secondment of the union president from Nigeria College‎ of Aviation technology (NCAT) to the AIB which they said contravened laid down rules in public service.

They insisted that the unions can not be beneficiaries of what they had fought against its abuse over the years.

Okewu had moved from NCAT on grade level 12 to AIB on level 15, an action that NAAPE said was an affront on public service rules.

NAPA Secretary General, Abdulrasaq Saidu said it remains null and void until it follows the right procedures.

ATTSSAN members in the NCAA are worried that the presidents tenure had expired but expressed further worry that his appointment amounted to ‘illegal elevation and promotion”

 Of concern to NAAPE is that the ATTSSAN president  upon resumption in AIB had done nothing else except fuelling  industrial disharmony.

The unions said “immediately he came on board, he threw  caution into the wind” by unilaterally stopping the release of its members for an already approved official engagement.

“Secondly, he terminated the contracts of older hands, well seasoned and trained aviators who had over 30 to 40 years of aviation background both in engineering and operations and well groomed accident investigators”

They stated further that “this not withstanding, Benjamin Okewu went ahead to reconstitute a disciplinary committee sighting wrongly the public service rule and AIB proposed conditions of service for his actions.

The union said his action was without recourse to management as there existed a subsisting disciplinary committee whose chairmanship is a director”

Both ATTSSAN, NAAPE members fear that “Okewu’s secondment ” would entrench personal vendetta that would throw the aviation industry into industrial disharmony.