Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, on Friday vowed that the Fly Nigeria Act will see the light of the day and come to fruition under his tenure.
The minister lamented that the document which is expected to make it mandatory for government financed air transportation of officials, contractors, grantees and properties to be carried by a Nigeria Air Flag Carriers has yet to materialise more than 15 years when it was first proposed.
Speaking at a one day “Stakeholders’ Engagement on the Legal Framework for the Fly Nigeria Bill and Related Enabling Legislation’, in Abuja, Mr. Keyamo said he will rally all the major stakeholders to push for the bill to be signed into law.
A former Minister of Aviation, Chief Babatunde Omotoba said the bill was first put together more than 15 years ago while he was the minister in charge of the ministry just as he commended Mr. Keyamo for the new drive and passion to finally bring the bill to reality.
Vice President of the Airline Operators of Nigeria AON and Chairman of Air Peace, Dr. Allen Onyema and AON spokesperson and Chairman of United Nigeria Airline, Professor Obiora Okonkwo described the move as a new dawn for the country’s aviation and domestic Airlines in Nigeria.
Keyamo said, “This has been on the cards for some time, for many years, more than 15 years because I think my predecessor, Chief Omotoba served more than 15 years ago.
“So you can imagine that this bill was taken to council more than 15 years ago and yet it did not see the light of day. Under my tenure it will happen.
“We just want to get things done. And so when I came to office I saw a couple of these things hanging on my desk like the Cape Town Convention to the cry of the Aviation Working Group and all the proposals that have been made to former governments to develop especially indigenous industry, a local industry. And what we did was to say look let us revive all of these dead things on my table that would help or that will help to develop our local industry.”
“And one of them of course is the Fly Nigeria Act. Luckily Olisa Agbakoba was also talking to me about it. He had brought a proposal.
“This had been on the card like the Cabotage Act too. It’s like also the Cabotage Act, you see in the blue economy sector too. So, I wonder, I was telling myself if the Cabotage Act had been passed to favor ships that fly the Nigerian flag and this had been passed long ago, what would be the problem with aviation? It tells you that there’s a certain external cabal in the aviation industry that seeks to destroy your own indigenous markets so that they can come and feed on that market.
“It’s a global conspiracy but you have to be smart to see it. Look at the entire African continent. Just look at it. All the foreign airlines in the world feed on the African markets without the competition of African Airlines, without fair competition from African Airlines. And they will ensure that the aviation markets in Africa remain taunted. Especially in a big country like Nigeria, they will ensure that it remains taunted so that they will continue to feed on your markets.
“Air France is coming here full, going back full. Both sides are Nigerians inside. You expect that when they are leaving their country, okay, many of them would have foreigners coming in and Nigerians going out.
“But both sides are Nigerians coming in and going out. Delta, the United from America, Lufthansa, British Airways, name all of them, all of them, all the foreign airlines. We thank them for their partnership and all that but I’m not condemning them.
“I’m saying that we must also develop our own to compete fairly. We just want to compete fairly. Qatar, Emirates, all of them.
“So the global conspiracy, it is an aviation you know about politics all over the world, global policy, aero politics. They do it in such a way very cleverly that they don’t want your local market, your local indigenous airlines to, you know, to grow so that they keep feeding on that market. So it is for us to be wise enough to see this and to come up with policies, policies, policies that will then empower our own local operators to match them on the negotiation table.
“And this is one of the latest in this series of actions we lined up. More are coming through to empower them and to make sure they survive. To say how do we then create the market for them?
“We are saying the summary of the Fly Nigeria Act is that every government funded trip, every government, whether what ministry or agency at all, if there is a Nigerian flag carrier flying that route, even locally, regionally, internationally, continentally, you must patronise the Nigerian flag carrier first before any foreign carrier. That’s a summary but you know the details, the devil is in the details. You will see the details, I will say that.
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