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Nigeria, Ethiopia’s relations risk damage, says serving diplomat

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The Nigeria Air saga is not limited to the aviation sector alone, it may have ruffled diplomatic feathers between Nigeria and Ethiopia.
A diplomat who spoke to Aviation Metric under the condition of anonymity said at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa early this year, the issue was taken up by the former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde which made President Bola Ahmed Tinubu send the Director-General of Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) with two others to proceed to Addis Ababa on a fact-finding mission on the deal.
The envoy who was in the know of the situation said the Ethiopian Airlines and Nigeria Air deal is been looked at at the highest level of government.
While the Ethiopian Government and Ethiopian Airlines are not averse to the termination of the Nigeria Air deal, they were however miffed with what they alleged to b, be “a campaign of calumny by the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo against Ethiopia as a country and Ethiopian Airlines that is reputed to be the most profitable airline in Africa and the 36th best carrier in the world”.
A serving diplomat who is not authorized to speak to the media said information and documents available to his Ministry which he shared with our correspondent said they are contrary to the ‘misinformation Airline Operators of Nigeria’ fed to the public that the Nigeria Air deal was not a fraud.
He said the deal was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) which had Keyamo in attendance and with copies of the ‘real’ agreement given to every Minister in attendance at the time’.
A representative of Ethiopian Airlines Consortium, Michael Adebayo had written President Bola Tinubu to call Keyamo to rest the Nigeria Air issue in the interest of the relationship between members of the consortium and Nigeria on one hand and the Government and people of Ethiopia and the government and people of Nigeria on the other hand, adding that these relationships have existed for over 70 years and should not be destroyed.
Adebayo in his letter to President Tinubu dated October 15th, 2024 titled, “Ethiopian Airline Consortium plea on the issue of the National Carrier” said, ‘It is normal for different governments to have different approaches to issues and we do understand that your administration may think differently about the structure of the national carrier project of the previous administration or even the need for it, we have previously stated that we are willing to abide by whatever decision the government takes on the issue”.
‘We have previously heard many allegations the Minister has made against the Nigeria Air project, including calling it a fraud, not a national carrier and referring to it as an attempt to monopolise the Nigerian aviation industry. In all these allegations, he had not shown any documents to prove such allegations against us as a consortium”.
He carpeted Keyamo saying that in the recent aviation Zoom meeting, he said he made allegations about certain clauses in a master agreement, stressing that this has made it necessary for them to write a letter to the president to make clarifications on some issues Keyamo raised.
He disclosed that the negotiated agreement with the Nigerian government, “Is not called a Master Agreement. The agreement is called an Establishment and Operations Agreement which he said currently resides with the Ministry of Aviation, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and Ministry of Justice that vetted and approved it vide its letter to the Ministry of Aviation which also refers to the agreement in its real names Establishment and Operations Agreement.
He specifically mentioned that the minister’s statement on all management staffing being Ethiopians, tax avoidance, profits being taken to Ethiopia and wet leases for aircraft is not true.
He added that normal practice is for a strategic investor to provide the management staff of the company it runs during an initial period to stabilize the company; to nominate such staff does not mean the staff will be Ethiopians, noting that some Nigerians had already been shortlisted for the management positions.
‘It is also normal practice for staff on secondment to be under a management contract and to avoid paying taxes in two countries, with payment of tax only in their permanent. However, the negotiation team informed the consortium that personal income tax was levied by the state government and the Federal Government did not have such powers to waive it, as such no tax waiver existed in the agreement or full business case”.
He further noted that in a company with 51% owned by Nigerians, 51% of the profits would reside in Nigeria and like in other businesses complying with Nigerian law, foreign companies who show evidence of investment are allowed to repatriate their share of the profits.
Nigeria, he stated has many pilots flying worldwide including in Ethiopian Airlines, as such, “We never considered using wet leases or foreign pilots in Nigeria. The aircraft were to be Nigerian-registered aircraft on commencement. We had even been allocated Nigerian registration numbers for the initial aircraft by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
Six aircraft comprising three B737-800 and three B737MAX had already been positioned and already assigned Nigerian registration numbers to begin operations.
He went further to inform the President that following the approval of the Outline Business Case (OBC) by the FEC in 2021, the OBC determined the structure of the national carrier and not the consortium, adding that it was the Nigerian Government that recommended a 51% Nigerian investor participation and a 49% strategic partner participation.
He pleaded to the President to stop Keyamo’s further damage to the consortiums reputation and the relationship between Nigeria and Ethiopia.
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