₦airaland Forum

Nonsense/

THE Nigeria civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), on Saturday, declared that the controversial aircraft in the service of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was on illegal operations in the country.

Consequently, the NCAA has grounded the Bombardier-BD 700 Global Express aircraft with registration number N565RS, which the authority said had an expired clearance approval effective 2 April.

Addressing reporters yesterday at the Aviation House, the headquarters of NCAA, the director of airworthiness standards, Mr Benedict Adeyileka, explained that while the aircraft was still operating illegally, it had been sighted in several places, including Owerri and Akure.

The NCAA director said about the incident:” The controversial aircraft on the service of Governor Rotimi Amaechi is operating illegally on the country.

“The aircraft a Bombardier BD 700, Global Express with registration number N565RS, has its clearance approval expired since Tuesday, April 2, 2013. By our records the last flight clearance for this aircraft was approved for operations on Thursday, March 28, 2013 on Accra/Port Harcourt and Accra to terminate on April 2, 2013. With this development, the aircraft has exceeded the extra two days or 48 hours leeway for it to leave the country.

“While still operating illegally, the aircraft has been sighted in several places, including Owerri and Akure. The owner of this aircraft, according to the certificate of registration, is Bank of Utah Trustees of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.”

Meanwhile, As controversy rages on over Friday’s alleged refusal by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to grant Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi’s plane start up to leave the Akure airport, the management of the agency, yesterday, insisted that the development was due to the failure of the pilot of the plane to submit the required manifest of passengers on board and that it was untrue that the plane was grounded by the airspace manager.

Addressing a press conference at the NAMA headquarters, the Managing Director of the agency, Nnamdi Udoh said contrary to the politicisation of the incident, the agency carried out its functions in line with the global aviation standard which he said did not accept any iota of politics.

His words: “By regulation, the manager has no power to clear any aircraft at that time of the day because Akure Airport operates day light operations. Approval must be given through the manager to the tower.

“After the clearance, the pilot must submit the manifest, which the pilot could not provide immediately. Manifest submission is a mandatory requirement before a start-up is granted. Aviation is not politics and we won’t dabble into politics.

But the Chief Press Secretary to Rt Hon. Amaechi, David Iyofor, countered the agency’s claim that the pilot violated operating rules by not filing a flight plan or declaring a manifest, saying “it is indeed most shameful and ludicrous that NAMA and the aviation authorities are now saying that they grounded the Rivers State Government plane because the pilot did not file a flight plan and declare a manifest. That’s a blatant lie; a big fat one at that.”

According to Iyofor, in a statement made available to Sunday Tribune, the Bombardier jet owned by the Rivers State Government, had landed at the airport in Owerri, where his principal had gone for the funeral rites of the younger sister of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Emeka Ihedioha and it was in Owerri that “the pilot of the plane was first tipped off that there is a plot to ground our plane in Owerri.”

He noted that once the plane which conveyed Rt. Hon. Amaechi; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal; the Director-General of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Asishana Bayo Okauru, Kalabari prince and politician, Prince Tonye Princewill and some aides of the governor touched down in Akure and they left for Ekiti by road, for the burial of the state’s late deputy governor, Mrs Funmilayo Olayinka, the pilot went to the airport offices to make statutory airport payments and fees, file his flight plan and declare his manifest but was told by the Controller that the plane would not be allowed to leave the airport.

“NAMA and the aviation authorities should explain to Nigerians why an aircraft owned by a state government, that flew the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal and a democratically elected governor of a state, who is also the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, would be grounded at an airport for no just cause?” Iyofor said.

However, NAMA insisted that the plane was not grounded by the airspace manager. Udoh said that the aircraft, Global Express, with the registration number N565RS, called for Air Traffic Controllers’ start up at 17:35, which was at once granted to the pilot at the Akure airport towers.
He added that the aircraft commenced taxing at 17:45 and departed at 17: 51.


http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/10608-fg-grounds-amaechi-s-plane-claims-it-is-operating-illegally-nama-defends-self-river-gov-alleges-foul-play

strangest: Meanwhile installation of cameras has been stalled in lagos...

Nonsense, whats the connection. Crap.

Nonsense

OP. Think before you repost nonsense.

Come home to do what? To infect women freely? Abeg, stay in Asia. LOL.

Nonsense.

Your stuuupidity is first class. Give it up. Get a life and talk some sensible things outside NairaLand.

Amaechi getting more popular than the President? Some people think from their butt holes.

Gbawe will soon defect to PDP. hahahahaha.

Ministry of Works of course. NEMA na road repair.

You dont want a life or future he wont be part of, but you want to die. Will he be there to live with you?

Why not? I do help strangers on they road.

Did they vote for Atiku 2007? Did they vote for Ribadu 2011? Did they vote for Buhari 2003, 2007, 2011? No. Check their voting pattern at the Presidential polls, its usually PDP. Check it.

try69: When one is a known liar, nothing truthful he says will be accepted.

Wellwork #40laptopcrew

You are right there, thats why no one is taking naysayers serious. They only back on the internet, the reality is there for others to see.

This is the kind of story some people dont want to read or hear. It pains them to read anything positive about Nigeria under GEJ.

Okiki_Oluwa: Shoo! Babangida Aliyu na Chairman of ocassion. Shey he don dey sign out of PDP small small.
----------------------
Last Bullet: Yes, PDP failed me & you. But I don't think APC is better.
I think this union of Tinubu & Buhari will not end well. Yoruba & Hausa friendship for power no dey last. Trace back to Afonja & Alimi in Ilorin to overthrow Alafin Aole of Oyo, 200years ago.

You obviously didnt read the story.

ok. So its not SPAM after all?

vandarsar: He said the president was physically present @ the presentation of the jet, do you wanna be spoofed like a baby

What kind of thinking is this? So because the President was present at the presentation of the jet is proof enough that FG purchased the jet and gave the Pastor? You need your brain examined.

Like seriously.

Tolexander: Before the next president can achieve taking us to the moon, the incumbent president should have at least get us up to a very far height above the atmosphere.

Taking about transformation using a caterpillar of an insect, has he forgotten that not all caterpillars reach the pupa stage let alone the adult stage.

LOL. Did he talk about Presidents taking us to the moon? He is literarily saying the next generation should work towards making Nigeria great, not the next President. LOL.

cute

splashbaby: Ok..We will grab land when we get there...Place wey Americans don turn to play ground already. On a serious note Nigeria can still achieve her potentials, but race to the moon is not one of those agenda oga GEJ. With our Azonto dancing youths, entertainment is the key and not science. We should focus on our area of strengths.

See your line of thought.

Why do these goons think mere shouting translates to electoral victory? The same way their bigots on NairaLand things heavy English and insults will win them elections. No wonder they have always been a bunch of losers.

God bless this fisherman from Otuoke. Keep doing your best and let the haters rot away.

What an insult to compare Tinubu with Awolowo. If you know what Oduduwa was, you wont compare him with Tinubu at all. You can be excused for comparing him with Awolowo, but Oduduwa, is extremely insulting.

If this had been a PDP governor. hmmmmm.

iwanchop: That's what he is paid to do;bring down the opposition at all cost.
Okupe does not care whether the president is right or wrong,his number one job responsibility is to convince the masses GEJ is right even when it is clear he is wrong.

The same way Lier Mohammed and Fasakin keep making unfound allegations all in the name of bringing down the government. They dont care whether they are telling the truth or not and when the government replies, you atack the government instead of asking the so called opposition to stick to the truth. Shame.

Attack the messenger and not the message. The same words they use when Fasakin and Liar Mohammed makes their own insinuations. These bigots are so annoying. Never objective with their long and meaningless english.

lookmangiw: Okupe have not said anything worth of reasoning.

Really? Oh, I understand, another ACN bigot. Of course, no one expects ACN bigots to take Okupe serious.

The political parties are becoming annoying, what is their proof? Nothing. Is this how they want to win elections in 2015? Heaping lies and baseless allegations just in the name of opposition?Is this how it is done elsewhere? If you must make allegations, accompany it with proof or just shut up.

You cant talk on what Okupe said but all you want to do is bring him down for saying what you dont want to hear.

The presidency has described opposition political leaders as lacking in positive political antecedents nor moral recommendation to find fault with the social and economic policies of the Jonathan administration.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe stated this in a press conference addressed in Lagos.

Responding to the speech made by Action Congress of Nigeria leader, Senator Bola Tinubu at the recent convention of the party, Dr. Okupe said opposition leaders are fond of using “every platform to denigrate this nation and its government, confuse innocent members of the public and deceptively present themselves as possessing what it takes to move Nigeria forward.”

While noting that the antecedents of the ACN leader as governor of Lagos state did not portray him as a friend of workers and masses, neither does it show him as having better managerial ability which he hopes to give the Nigerian people, Okupe said, “the Bola Tinubu who spoke about poor budget implementation at the federal level never attained sixty percent budget implementation while he presided over the affairs of Lagos between 1999 and 2003.Contrast this with the remarkable budget implementation record of the present administration in the last two years. The records are there for all to see.

Senator Tinubu who spoke about meager wages for public servants in Nigeria was known to have ignored calls of Lagos civil servants for a 7,500 naira monthly wage and when he eventually buckled to the pressure of Labour leaders, he wickedly sacked the major arrow head of the struggle in person of Comrade Ayodele Akele who was never re-instated.

The present National chairman of the ACN, Chief Bisi Akande as Governor of Osun state during the same period denied workers of a 5,500 naira minimum wage and eventually laid off over 9,000 workers during his for year reign. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole,who was then NLC President and now Governor of Edo state led workers on protest march in Osun state during the period but Chief Akande remained adamant. Where then is the credential of these people to talk about job creation, promotion of workers’ interest and democratic etiquette?”

The presidential spokesman picked holes in the merger of opposition political parties noting that none of the parties has what it takes to move Nigeria forward.

“These sets of politicians who want to desperately supplant the Jonathan’s administration are promoting an incongruous alliance of political weaklings and dysfunctional lilliputians out primarily to foster their ego and psyche being repeatedly frustrated political power mongers; forgetting that one million giant ants can never muster the required strength to lift a concrete pole not to talk of a nationally entrenched pillar and structurally established institution like the PDP.

“It is worthy of note that the major plank of this motley assembly, the ACN, is notorious for outsourcing its presidential standard bearer from the ranks of the same PDP they gleefully vilify.

“In 2003, their choice was Vice President Atiku Abubakar who now knows them better. In 2011, it was a protégé of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who fitted the slot, although he was later betrayed and sacrificed on the altar of self-interest.”

Okupe said none of the states being currently governed by the opposition ACN has given a good account of themselves as being insinuated by the opposition.

“As I speak with you, Ekiti and Osun states which are being governed by these opposition political parties are embroiled in one form of industrial crisis or the other as a result of the insensitive, cruel and anti-workers policies of their present governors.

“Local government workers and teachers went on strike in Ekiti and lost a number of their members to sack and other forms of victimization. In Osun, tertiary institutions are at present under lock and key. School fees have tripled in institutions of higher learning owned by Ekiti, Lagos, Osun and Oyo states. Yet, Senator Tinubu spoke of the present government as “heartless and mean that put the interest of small elite above the interest of the common working man and woman who are the backbone of this nation”.

While asserting that President Goodluck Jonathan will not be distracted from pursuing his transformation agenda, Okupe assured Nigerians that the various programmes on power, infrastructure, agriculture and job creation will be pursued even more vigorously in the coming months.