Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Oyeama, speaks on the controversy surrounding the recently unveiled Nigeria Air by the former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika. The supposed new national has become a subject of debate within the aviation sector and beyond since its inauguration. Oyeama is telling President Bola Tinubu to dissolve the charade called Nigeria Air for the obvious lies and deceit it represents, in an interview on Arise TV, monitored by David Lawani
What do you have to say about those spurious allegations about you concerning Nigerian Air as a shareholder?
Well, it is quite unfortunate. If it ever happened. I am not here to fight any battle with the ex- Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika. It is not in my DNA to pick fights, but I must say that it is very shameful for an ex-minister of the government to have made such claims. As he said, 20 years ago, he was in the House of Representatives; he was a Senator, and for the last eight years he has been a minister for Nigeria being paid from taxpayers’ funds. He supervised the ministry. You will expect him to be the chief marketer, but that has not happened in the last eight years. I must point out certain things, for an ex-minister of aviation to come out to say indirectly or directly that his airline or an airline he supervised is so incompetent. These two aircraft paid $500, 000 monthly for 18 months and incurred $19m, and he was saying it while peddling falsehood. He was speaking as a matter of fact that it happened, imagine the damage this minister has done to the image and reputation of Air Peace. As an incompetent entity, he was peddling pure falsehood. How do we now believe every other thing that he has said on that day? To start with, Air Peace doesn’t have two triple seven, Air Peace has three, and those three were out-rightly purchased. Two of those planes are ex-Emirate and one is ex-Singapore Airline. The two were out rightly purchased by Air Peace. Therefore, we never paid any lease renter to anybody. In the first place, you cannot use N250,000 to rent a triple 777. How much do you pay for single-eye aircraft, not to talk of a triple 777? This is a minister trying to fool the entire nation in his desperate bid to fool and hoodwink the nation, he resulted in spreading falsehood about Air Peace.
So, how do we as a nation believe every other thing he was saying out there?
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority is there. You can contact the NCA. They are the regulators. He was in charge. He signed the import permit for those aircraft. You cannot import any aircraft into the country without the Minister of Aviation’s approval. He signed the import. If there was going to be a list, it was stated in the letter of application to bring an aircraft. No aircraft comes into the country without the Minister of Aviation’s approval. He must be the one to sign the importation papers or permit before you bring them in. So, he did all that. And he knew quite well that those planes were not leased. They were not rented. They were fully paid for. And he told the entire world that we leased those planes. Just to make us look bad and at the same time praise Ethiopia his partner.
Was Air Peace in any way interested as an operator in partnering with the Nigerian government, or was any move made and what was the outcome?
I will give you the history of this whole struggle. Contrary to what the ex-Minister has been saying about Nigerian Air the importance of having a National Air Carrier. National Carrier is a moribund idea worldwide. Countries don’t go that route anymore because it is no more a trend in any country. Those who are on it are running out of it. The phrase, National Carrier, means government ownership. What countries do this day are flight carriers. British Airways is a flight carrier and it is owned by the IAG group. It is just very few countries that are still into the National Carrier thing like South Africa, and the South Africa Airway is bleeding the treasury of South Africa. Several times they have tried to close it, and unions will come and fight for it, but the government is tired. Recently Qatar bought it over. So they have divested. Countries don’t go that route, why should Nigeria in 2023 be going backward instead of moving forward? All they needed to do is to strengthen the ease of doing business so that people of means like the Ministry of Commerce will come and invest in it. We are not fighting for ourselves like they told you. They said we are afraid of competition. The airlines in Nigeria are afraid of competition. Nobody is afraid of this National Carrier because it will fall and fail like a pack of cards. It is already there. What we are saying in Airways is this, improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, remove those challenges that are stunting the growth of airlines in Nigeria, and these airlines will blossom. When they wanted to do the National Carrier, we have our comments but most people stood against it. When we saw that they were going to do it we knew but the whole thing was shrouded in secrecy. Our members told Air Peace that this applies. When you went to that website it was blocked. We never went anywhere. Forget what they say out there. What else do you need to know? SAHCOL is part of this group, he named SAHCOL as part of this group, I am not going to say on television certain things because I don’t like heating the polity.
Can you say those things for the healing of this country?
I have said it all even on the floor of the National Assembly on the day he announced this National Carrier thing. The minister told us Sovereign Wealth was part of it for about five per cent, while SAHCOL and MRS had six per cent, and Ethiopian Air was 49 per cent. Within hours, NSIA told him to withdraw that statement, so, what else are we talking about in this country? What else do you need to know? If you could come on Television to announce that these are the successful bids. They must have presented a bid and they say we are not part of it. And they later came and said it was a mistake. SAHCOL came on the floor of the National Assembly and say we don’t know what you are talking about. And they used the worst language I have ever heard. They describe the entire activity as whitewashed. The videos are there. We were all in the national assembly. SAHCOL and someone like Taiwo Afolabi be thanked by Nigerians. If not for SAHCOL, a lot would have happened. It is SAHCOL’s refusal to put their signature on something that will short-change the economy of this country that saved this nation and nothing more. Those of us in Airway, the Airway that went to court and we knew full well that they might penetrate Airway to destroy our ranks. Five airlines came out and stood up and put their names on that suit. So that in case you destroy AON, the other ones have locus in law to do this. Those airlines are; Mass Air, Azman,
Air Peace, Pubras, and United Nigeria Airlines. On Sunday, when you asked the question where is Air Peace? I am sure he must have mentioned it more than 15 times even though I don’t know what he has done to him. He said it is not only Air Peace again but Obiora Okonkwo of United Nigeria. And he deliberately forgot to mention the other ones. Are we trying to play ethnic cards? Thank God the leadership of Abdul Unusa Saliu has given AON a tooth to bite. That man is a nationalist. Dairu Manga is from Katsina state. He owns Mass Air. Unusa is from Kano State. He owns Azman. Both of them and myself Air Peace, Pubras owned by Rowland Iyayi and Obiora Okonkwo of United Nigeria went to court. And those people are still in court. So it is not an ethnic thing but a Nigerian thing. And let me congratulate our brother, Alahji Dairu Manga. He has gotten his first 777 yet we don’t have capacity.
How come they said you don’t have capacity but other countries are calling you to come and help them to set up their national carrier?
The truth is that I am a student of nonviolence education. Sometimes there are things we manage in other not to hit up the polity. But the truth is this, we have to speak up. He said we don’t have the capacity. All those falsehoods were meant to demean the local operators. The indigenous Nigeria airlines in favour of this charade put up with Ethiopia- that is all. Even at the Federal Executive Council meetings, former President Muhammadu Buhari shut down this Nigeria Air project at a time, but one man was just hoodwinking the entire nation into believing that this is needed. All he needs to do is to set up a carrier. He should have provided an enabling environment for people to operate, and more people will invest in the system. He told the world that we are low in capacity, on television, he told the world that Air Peace was given to Dubai to conduct flight operations. Are they flying now? Air Peace is no longer flying to Dubai because they are low in capacity. Whoever advised Hadi Sirika to come out on television to defend the indefensible has not done him any good. The whole world knows. We started operations in Dubai on July 5th, 2019, we never stopped until COVID-19, and everybody stopped, when COVID-19 stopped we started. UAE decided for whatever reason to issue a complete ban on visas to Nigerians. Air Peace stopped going to Dubai. Emirate stopped coming to Nigeria. Neither Air Peace nor Emirates is plying this route now. None of them. So why the Minister in government should openly come on television and display this kind of outrage to the world? To demonstrate falsehood? Because he wants to paint the indigenous operators black. Now, he said Air Peace doesn’t have the capacity. In the same Air Peace when the entire world shut down during the lockdown in 2020 because of COVID-19, Air Peace went to China on three occasions bringing back Nigerians- that is 14 to 15 hours nonstop flight deploying our 777 aircraft to bring Nigerians back to their homeland, yet Air Peace doesn’t have the capacity. Air Peace went to India 12 times bringing Nigerians that went to India that did not have money to pay Ethiopia Airlines to bring them back. I deploy my jet, Air Peace deploy our jets and we went there. Those we brought back later put it in a newspaper to thank us. We brought them back to our country free of charge. We did twelve shuttling to India. Yet Air Peace doesn’t have the capacity. Air Peace went to Thailand and brought Nigerians back. Yet Air Peace doesn’t have the capacity. Air Peace went to Malaysia and brought Nigerians back yet they don’t have the capacity. Air Peace went to Indonesia and brought Nigerians back. In Indonesia, Nigerians went to the Embassy, and they almost attacked everybody there because people were stranded. We went there and brought them back. Air Peace went to South Africa during COVID-19 and brought Nigerians back. Air Peace also went to England, the UK and brought Nigerians back. It went on a second trip and the UK authority said no it is not coming again. They cancel the permit they gave us. I paid for Nigerians, I hired a European carrier to bring them back, and the Federal Government of Nigeria praised Air Peace for doing a great job and for the love of the country. They fight you from different angles and this is what is happening. Yet we don’t have the capacity. Nigeria as a nation was respected worldwide for what Air Peace did on their behalf. Nigerians felt proud. You needed to see it. And you saw me on one occasion crying. Why did I cry? It was because I saw a northern woman carrying a child. She was praying for me. She said she lost a child in South Africa and that if we didn’t come she would have died. And an Igbo guy was helping her to carry the other baby from South Africa. They were all clinging to each other. They were singing the national anthem, and Nigerians suddenly became one. This is what we are using Air Peace to do for the country, it is not about money. When it comes to Air Peace, in Nigeria we don’t discriminate. I have trained Northerners, and Southerners, and given them meaningful employment. The minimum wage in Air Peace is about 50k for cleaners, and in support of the government of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, we addressed our staff to support this removal of subsidy, we are going to dish out palliative to our staff in support of the government. This is what we have been doing. And, shockingly, a former minister of government could come out there in the open and say we don’t have the capacity. Just recently we deployed to Sudan to bring back Nigerians free of charge. Yet we don’t have the capacity. Where was Ethiopian Airlines? Can they do that? What they are doing now with the National Carrier is what they wanted to do with me for a long. But for the love of country, I turned it down. In a letter on April 10, 2019, they came to me and wanted Air Peace to collaborate with them. They took off to Addis-Abba and signed MoU. And they said in the MOU, “Oh, we need to push out gulf carriers. No problem. Mind you, I am very proud of what Ethiopia has achieved as an airline. They are the pride of Africa. I liked what they achieved no doubt. We tried to collaborate but when we got to the nitty-gritty of the meeting, what they wanted was to come into this place to do local flying and then use Air Peace foresight to fly the whole world. They will be paying me royalties. I would have been getting millions of dollars and one of the jokes is that you will not need to be buying planes again. So I said, where does this lead my country? In the letter, I wrote to them. I said, “Where does this leave my nation Nigeria?” It will destroy the jobs in Nigeria and kill the other airlines, and Allen and Air Peace will be swimming in millions of dollars. We rejected it in our letter and it is documented. And it is in court today. So for people saying we are afraid of competition, who is afraid of competition?
What is the status of the matter in court?
I need time to debunk so many of the things that he said. But if I knew I was going to spend five minutes and go, I wouldn’t have come in the first place. And that is the truth. About the court case. I am surprised that the learned SAN was saying that the court order had been vacated. The court order has not been vacated. That is the truth, the court order is still subsisting. They have not been vacated. What they did on May 26 was contemptuous of Nigerian laws, and inviting a foreign airline to come and disregard and disrespect our judiciary is very unbecoming of government officials. Alex Izinyon cannot go to court tomorrow and tell them that the case has been vacated, it has not. You don’t vacate a court order by word of mouth. Senator Hadi Sirika said that there is an application to vacate it, application to vacate is not a vacation because it could go either way. The orders of the court are still subsisting.
What is the position of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA)?
One thing is to apply I want to go to London, I want to go to the US and the Federal Government gives you approval to go. That is one thing. The other one is that you need the support of the government to fight for you and truthfully too. London is the lowest-hanging fruit for any airline. Why is it that Air Peace which doesn’t have the capacity anywhere that is doing China? We are doing India, Jeda now and Medina on the Hajj. We fly to South Africa. Nigerians now go to India using Air Peace twice a week. We do all this. Why is it that in the last six years, Air Peace has not been able to get to London? When we applied, first of all, to get well, I don’t want to get into all that. When we applied, because we need to apply for TCO, they wrote Nigerian authorities to ask, do you know about this Air Peace? And I was denied. They said no we didn’t know about it. We didn’t authorise them to apply. I said for what? That is you will need to get the TCO before you can get into any European nation and UK inclusive. They stopped us. NCAA didn’t allow Air Peace to apply to go into London for four years. We were stopped, the same reason Arik messed up in London. Medview messed up. Therefore we don’t want to be disgraced. We almost lost it, not NCAA under the present DG. In fact, to the credit of the present DG, he was the one that took up the gauntlet to fight for us. This present DG Captain Musa Nuru. He has done everything possible to get it done and almost stopped BA from coming here, but the other NCAA before him, for four years, we were not allowed to go. So who was manipulating them? For no reason, when you go they say from above. Fine. I wanted to fight but the love of country. I know some of the things I would have said will turn into ethnic issues, but I don’t want that. So, I kept my cool.
