The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Air Peace Allen Onyeama has joined the growing list of persons to have faulted the push for a national carrier, describing the idea as moribund and a drain pipe.
Nigeria had months back launched a national carrier Nigeria Air. But the move, steeped in controversy, was suspended by the government of President Bola Tinubu about two months after it took over power.
Despite the government’s decision, the dust about the ill-fated project is yet to settle as Onyeama insists the country does not need a national carrier owing to the difficulties of running such a business.
‘A Moribund Idea’
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The Air Peace chief believes the government has no business in having a national carrier.
“Does Nigeria actually need a national carrier? It’s an emphatic no,” he said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“The national carrier thing connotes government ownership. The government has no business doing the business of commercial airline operations. The national carrier thing is a moribund idea that has been jettisoned several decades ago by countries,” the Air Peace chief said on the current affairs show.
According to him, several airlines that bear country names are just “flag carriers” and not owned by nations as many may have assumed.
“In the olden days, they used to be [owned by governments] but they are all divested. They are all flag carriers,” Onyema said about national carriers, asking: “Why is my country going backward? In 2023, talking about national carrier?”
He believes the few African countries with national carriers are those “that cannot afford business entrepreneurs with the right funding”.
In the wake of the Nigeria Air launch, Sirika (centre and in blue attire) said the project will be private sector-driven. Photo: Channels TV/Sodiq Adelakun.
His comment adds to the wave of condemnations that have greeted the launch of the national carrier decades after Nigerian Airways stopped operations.
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Nigeria’s Senate faulted the launch of the Nigeria Air which it says was shrouded in secrecy.
Its committee on aviation had waded into the start of the project after several bouts of controversies, raising concerns over the launch.
Pushed to find out more about the project, it convened a meeting with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Aviation, Emmanuel Meribole; the Interim Managing Director, Nigeria Air, Capt Dapo Olumide as well as heads of aviation agencies.
The committee wondered why the immediate past Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika hurriedly unveiled Nigeria Air on the last day of Muhammadu Buhari’s government and labelled the project as a fraud.
At the event, Captain Olamide admitted that the aircraft used to unveil the national carrier was a chartered flight from Ethiopian Airlines, a revelation that further sparked condemnation.
