For 13 years, aviation agencies operated without governing board

• Olowo lauds sector’s, seeks Minister’s intervention in board appointment

Successive governments have continued to violate the Acts establishing virtually all the aviation agencies as the parastatals have continued to operate without a governing board for 13 years the last ones for the agencies were scrapped by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The agencies without board are the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian College of Aviation (NCAT), Zaria, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) – formerly the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB).

A former President of Aviation Round Table (ART), Dr. Gabriel Olowo has again called on the Federal Government to appoint a Board of Directors for the various aviation agencies.

Findings by Aviation Metric, however, indicate that the last time the agencies had governing boards was during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Former minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah who served in the ministry from July 2011 to February 2014, dissolved the boards and since then the agencies have been run without boards in violation of the Acts establishing them.

The Act of each of the agencies specifically makes provision for the composition of governing boards to run the organisation.

The intent is to ensure that there is corporate governance in the running of the agencies while deepening the quality of decisions and policy implementation.

Part 2 (5) of the NCAA Act 2022 reads: 5.—(1) There is established for the Authority, a Governing Board (in this Act referred to as “the Board”).

“The Board shall consist of — (a) a Chairman ; (b) one representative each, who shall be within the directorate cadre, from the Federal Ministry for the time being responsible for — (i) Aviation, and (ii) Defence; (c) the Director-General of the Authority.

The chairman and members of the Board other than the Director-General shall be appointed on a part-time basis by the President on the recommendation of the Minister.”

According to Olowo, the minister needed to appoint a board for the agencies as stipulated in their acts, saying that this would make a smooth assessment of each agency seamless by the minister, rather than the ad-hoc interference.

Olowo regretted that the same was demanded severally in the last regime as headed by Sen. Hadi Sirika, the former Minister of Aviation, but without any positive result, wondering why Keyamo as a lawyer was toeing the same line.

He emphasised that the current regime, barely one year in office, had taken some giant steps to position the industry in the right perspective, but lamented that no action had been taken in this direction despite the call for it by the experts in the sector.

He added, “The board without emphasis will oversight the agencies and make smooth assessment of each agency seamless by the minister, rather than the ad-hoc interference as it were.

“One wonders why every subsequent minister finds it difficult to honour this aspect of the law safe for the route of undue interference on matters of the agencies.”

Former President Muhammadu Buhari, during his first term, announced boards for the agencies in December 2017 but they were never inaugurated.

It was learnt that the membership violated the provisions of the Acts which stipulated the requisite qualifications they must possess.

Wole Shadare