BY OBONG VICTOR ATTAH

Your newspaper at page 10, on Saturday, May 5, 2018 carried an article with the above title. The article was by Chris Aligbe. The author was full of praise for the methodical manner in which the Minister, Senator Hadi Sirika, a trained pilot, was tackling the augean task of reinventing the aviation industry in Nigeria.

Not so long ago, a female popular columnist had suggested that the women of Nigeria might conscript the same minister as President because he is so handsome. Mr. Aligbe has established that, apart from good looks, our minister also has a good head on his shoulders.

This article was of particular interest to me, not just because it concerned Senator Sirika but also because of the sort of legacy that I left to the aviation industry in Akwa Ibom state. And indeed I was not disappointed because Mr. Aligbe had a lot to say about the MRO building at Ibom airport.

My concern in writing this piece is to point out, and therefore fill in, the knowledge gaps, as well as correct some errors of discernment which I observed in the article. Everyone who has visited Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom state, and has had the opportunity to experience the Le Meridien Ibom Hotel and Golf Resort has, without exception, attested to the lofty idea, the meticulous execution and the sheer elegance that characterized that project. That remained the hallmark of all my projects in my eight years as governor of the state. It was no different with the airport.

In writing about the MRO Project at the airport, the article claimed that “it was not well thought out because, from all indications, there was no feasibility study and no market research to determine the viability and success”. I want to assume that this statement was made out of ignorance rather than mischief, which is why I talk about knowledge gap rather than bias.

I should like therefore to draw Mr. Aligbe’s attention to a letter dated 8th October, 2003 addressed to the Director, The U.S Trade and Development Agency, 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 16000 Arlington, Virginia which was personally signed by Mallam Isa Yuguda, Honourable Minister of Aviation. The title of the letter was

“REQUEST FOR THE FINANCING OF THE FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THE NATIONAL AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE CENTRE (HANGAR PROJECT) IN NIGERIA”

The letter reads in parts:

“The concept for a National Aircraft Maintenance Centre in Nigeria to serve domestic and regional needs has been considered for many years. A 1990 feasibility study supported by US Trade and Development Agency grant funds investigated the possibility of creating such a facility and concluded that it could be commercially viable..

A new study is now needed to update and revalidate previous information and to consider current realities… We hereby request that the U.S Trade and Development Agency support a proposal by DynCorp International/ CSC to complete a new feasibility study on the development of a National Aircraft Maintenance Facility in Nigeria. The project will be located at Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom state of Nigeria. It is pertinent to point out that the relevant Nigerian Aviation Agencies have confirmed the suitability of the project location and have therefore given a nod for the project”.

So on what “indications” did Mr. Aligbe come to the conclusion that the project was not well thought out and that there was no feasibility study?

Somewhere in his article, Mr. Aligbe admitted that “Yuguda with his Transaction Adviser… were very sincerely and doggedly working … to actualize their assignment to evolve a new National Airline …” Let me add that Mallam Isa Yuguda was forcefully aware of the mutual dependency of Airline and MRO. He was very conscious of the “symbiotic relationship” (to quote from Mr. Aligbe’s article) that is needed between an airline – a successful airline and a viable MRO. So while he gave his full attention to his assignment of evolving a new National Airline, he gave me all the support I needed to bring about a functional MRO which I did. To ensure the optimal operational efficiency of the MRO, I simultaneously developed an Independent Power Plant (IPP) of 191 megawatt. It was my belief that Akwa Ibom would become the first state in Nigeria to boast of 24hours constant power supply.

So ab initio, the airport at Uyo was designed to house the National Maintenance Centre. With a land area larger than that of Ikeja. Ibom Airport manifests all the features of a maintenance airport as spelt out in the feasibility study. It is designed to accommodate two parallel runways separated by 1.5km of empty land – the accident distance of an aircraft. This is to allow for the fact that one runway can be closed, for whatever reason, while the other will remain open and functional. The first of the runways, measuring 3.6km and 60 meters wide has already been put down. The second will be 4.2km. This is to ensure that an approaching disabled aircraft can land 24/7 and the airport would not have to be closed to repair a runway as happened in Abuja. We will not always have a Senator Sirika to rise to the occasion in such an emergency.

We went beyond building an airport. We sent over 40 young Akwa Ibomites to train outside the country in all aspects of aircraft maintenance and airport management – firefighting, air traffic control, we trained a female pilot now flying with Air Peace. But there are those who refuse to believe that something good can come out of Nazareth, just as there are others who had turned green with envy over the phenomenal and unprecedented pace at which Akwa Ibom was leaping forward. So articles kept appearing in the national dailies calling for the establishment of a national maintenance centre. It became obvious that, given our perverse inclination to destructive nepotism, most of these were targeted at only one thing – to run down what we had done in Akwa Ibom so that a new MRO can be established elsewhere.

It was this that compelled me to write in 2012 to Mrs. Stella Oduah, then Minster of Aviation to advise against such monumental wastefulness. I sent copies of that letter to His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GCFR) President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Mrs. Ngozi  Okonjo-Iwela, Hon. Minster for Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy. Till date I am still waiting for acknowledgment.

I want to hope that if Mr. Chris Aligbe had remembered that I am a thoroughbred professional and an acclaimed technocrat, the first Nigerian ever to be licensed – way back in 1972 – to practice architecture in the United States of America, he perhaps would not have made the offensive statement that “the then Akwa Ibom Government followed the sure path of failure that has become our national companion in the aviation sector, the components of which are: lack of transparency, non-use of professional consultants in all ramifications in the establishment of a viable project”.

I don’t think that Mr. Aligbe can point to a single project that I established in Akwa Ibom in my eight years that can be considered non-viable or that did not use a full complement of desired professionals. Because he obviously does not know, let me inform him as follows: first of all, Mallam Isa Yuguda’s letter to the U.S Trade and Development Agency shows that the relevant Nigerian Aviation Agencies had been fully involved in the formulation of this project. Besides, by the Nigerian Constitution which we operate today, Aviation is on the exclusive list. How then could such a project as this have been conceived and executed without involving the relevant federal authorities! Mr. Aligbe may wish to know that the site selection for this airport was done by   Mott Mc Donald of Croydon in the UK;  LPA, a Washington based, world renowned firm of airport design consultants prepared the airport master plan and designed the MRO building with input from me; Hogan & Hartson one of the largest law firms in America also based in Washington handled the legal aspects while DynCorp, the people who maintain Airforce One, the air fleet of the President of the U. S of America were engaged as the MRO operators.

To be able to obtain the needed licence to proceed with this project, I had to make a convincing presentation to a panel that consisted of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Director- General of State Security Services (DG – SSS); the National Security Adviser (NSA); the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Air staff and a few more such officers of the Federal Government of Nigeria. On my side, apart from the team from Akwa Ibom state I was accompanied by the then serving Ambassador of the United States of America to Nigeria. How much more transparent could we have been!

As recently as March of this year, 2018, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority put together a team to visit the MRO building at Uyo. The team consisted of the Director Airworthiness, the General Manager, Air Operator Certification & Surveillance, and two Aviation Safety Inspectors. As the originator of this project, I had the privilege of being invited to join the team. From remarks made during the visit, I have every reason to believe that the team was suitably impressed with what they saw. I recommend that Mr. Chris Aligbe, and whoever else that may be genuinely interested in the success of the aviation industry in this country should visit this project. It is only then that they may realise the truism in the expression that “Seeing is Believing”.

I see a strong need for the Transaction Advisers to visit the MRO in Akwa Ibom. I have no doubt that the Hon. Minister for Aviation also sees this need and will ensure that this happens. Apart from the fact that there is no other airport in this country that is specifically designed to accommodate such a facility, starting a new MRO project today will need at least two years to get to where the Akwa Ibom project has reached. Also the money needed to complete the Akwa Ibom MRO is only a fraction of what would be required today for a new project of such a magnitude. The suggestion by Mr. Chris Aligbe that the Akwa Ibom MRO project has failed has no merit. But I agree entirely with him that this project can find a place in the coming dispensation. This will be to the eternal credit of a minister who succeeded where others failed.