₦airaland Forum

Former Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Hadi Sirika, has said some domestic operators, under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria, caused the collapse of the Nigeria Air agreement between the federal government and Ethiopian Airlines.

Sirika argued that while the agreement, which passed through the Federal Executive Council, FEC, and the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC, was transparent, Air Peace, Azman and United Nigeria Airlines hindered the establishment due to the limited stake Nigeria would have had.

Speaking on Morning Brief, a Channels TV programme, the former minister, who promised to write a book on his time in office, urged the citizenry to invoke the Freedom of Information Act, FOI, to investigate claims that the agreement was fraudulent.

According to him, he formally sought partnership with Ethiopian Airlines because no domestic carrier had the capacity to compete with the mega carriers.

His words: “I think I was on either Channels or Arise during the controversy of Nigeria Air. First and foremost, it was a public private partnership, PPP, which was regulated by ICRC, which gave a certificate of the OBC and ABS, which participated actively in the process. It was not our process.

“It was the process of ICRC. It was not a bad deal. I read in the papers that I spent N100 billion or thereabouts, and it was lost in the process. That was a lie. Between 2015 and 2023, the total budget for the national carrier was N5billion. The total amount released was N3 billion. I left there with over a billion naira.

“Nearly a third of the N2 billion spent went into the consultancy that was used during the time and the balance of the money, of course, into staff that were hired. By the way, we went through every single step of the ICRC process, and we got it to the end.

“We had an airline, but some people (Air Peace, United and Azman) went to court to say we cannot establish an airline where we take five per cent. That was what stalled it. If there was no court case, and the government that came in had pursued the court case, by today, we will have an airline.

“Talking about Ethiopian Airlines. 95 per cent of all airlines operating within Africa are not African. British Airways, Qatar, Air France and others. Ethiopian Airlines has been running an airline for 79 years. They have made a statement of how to run an airline, and they are Africans.

“They came to partner with us to be able to open up the world to us. Today, the price of a ticket from Abuja to London is more expensive than Accra to London, and the reason is because we do not have a formidable airline with the capacity to continue to do so.

sammyscholar:
Not a sign of leadership. Government blaming the private entities for it's failure!

Pakute:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/09/sirika-blames-air-peace-united-azman-for-failure-of-nigeria-air/

mikeapollo:
When a case or project is in court, it places an automatic embargo on further actions or work that could be done on it. Unless the govt decides to be lawless and disrespect court orders and procedures.
Taking a project to court is one sure way by which such project could be frustrated, especially in an inefficient judicial system like ours.