President Muhammadu Buhari promised to prune the Presidential Air Fleet and Nigerians are counting days, GBENRO ADEOYE writes
President Muhammadu Buhari took a long
and tortuous journey to the Aso Villa unlike others before him. After
three failed attempts, Buhari made history with his fourth bid to be
Nigeria’s President, defeating the incumbent.
His fourth attempt, with many campaign promises, had more drama than his previous ones.
Two decades ago, the promises could have
been forgotten already, but that period is long gone in the country’s
history. But today, we live in a ‘computer age’, one of internet, social
media and more political awareness among the general public.
Buhari’s
promises were premised on dealing with four focal issues: corruption,
insecurity, economy and unemployment, but there were other legs like
ensuring fiscal responsibility and curbing wastefulness in government,
which is where his promise to prune the presidential air fleet came in.
Buhari, during his electioneering,
described Nigeria’s presidential fleet under former President Goodluck
Jonathan, as a “waste.”He therefore promised to make changes when he
assumed office.
In a speech delivered to the Nigerian
community in the United Kingdom in February, Buhari described the waste
alongside corruption as the major killers of the country’s economy.
He had said, “Let me give you an
instance, presently, there are more than six aircraft in the
presidential fleet. What do you call that? Billions of Naira is budgeted
every year for the maintenance of these aircraft not to talk of
operational costs and other expenses.
“You may want to ask what a Nigerian
President is doing with so much aircraft when a Prime Minister of
Britain flies around using the same public aircraft like ordinary
Britons.
“Go and check and compare with that of
any developed country in the world, the Office of the Nigerian President
is a very expensive one in spite of our poverty and joblessness.
Despite all these, you still find a Nigerian Minister spending about
N10bn to charter an aircraft for just one year.
“Now for me, when we come into office,
all these waste will be blocked and properly channelled into our
economy. We intend, for instance, to bring back our National carrier,
the Nigerian Airways. We shall do this by bringing all the aircraft in
the presidential fleet into the Nigerian airways and within a year
increase the fleet to about 20.
“What is the difference between me and
those who elected us to represent them? Absolutely nothing! Why should
Nigerian President not fly with other Nigerian public?”
The presidential air fleet reportedly
has about 10 aircraft servicing the air transportation needs of the
President, his entourage and high ranking government officials. The
immediate former President was often slammed by the public for
maintaining such number of aircraft, especially as figures obtained from
the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria, and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority revealed that the
aircraft gulp about N9bn annually.
A national newspaper (not The PUNCH) had
recently reported that the President had ordered the sale of nine
aircraft in the Presidential Air Fleet but this was denied by his Senior
Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu.
PAF has the third largest fleet of aircraft in the country, with a combined estimated value of $390.5m (N60.53bn).
According to findings, the PAF comes closely behind Aero Contractors Airlines, which has about 14 aircraft.
Arik Air, the largest commercial airline in the country, has a fleet of 23 aircraft.
Information obtained from aviation agencies by Saturday PUNCH
also revealed that some of the aircraft in the fleet also service the
needs of presidents of sister countries in West Africa, who see Nigeria
as a “big brother” in the region.
A source at the Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria, who did not want his name published because he was
not authorised to speak on the issue, said, “Nigeria has always played a
big brother role in West Africa, and in that capacity, one of the
things we do is lend planes in PAF to governments of neighbouring
countries when they need private jets.
“Such jet will be taken to the leader
who needs it in his country and then take him to where he wants to go,
before returning to Nigeria. Nigeria takes care of the fuelling.
“Also, when there are events that
concern the Economic Community of West African States, Nigeria sometimes
sends planes from the fleet to bring in leaders of neighbouring
countries and take them back.”
The immediate past administration of
Jonathan also faced public criticisms over what was termed wasteful
spending, especially after it was revealed that he had proposed an
upfront deposit of N1.5bn in the 2014 Appropriation Bill that was
presented to the National Assembly for the purchase of a new aircraft to
take the number of planes in the presidential air fleet to 11 and
reinforce its position as one of the most luxurious presidential fleet
worldwide.
According to airline chief executives
and industry experts, airlines spend between 15 and 20 per cent of the
cost of an aircraft on its operation yearly. They say that averagely, a
little less than one-fifth of the cost of the plane is spent every year
on insurance, flight and cabin crew, maintenance, fuelling, catering and
training.
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister,
just as Buhari noted, has no presidential aircraft. Members of the
British government charter the British Airways or Virgin Atlantic most
times.
Also, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong
travels on commercial aircraft, usually operated by Cathay Pacific. He
travels with helicopters operated by the Government Flying Service.
The President, Prime Minister of
Singapore and government officials typically travel on regular scheduled
commercial flights run by Singapore Airlines. However, on rare
occasions or short trips, government officials may travel on one of the
few passenger-configured Fokker-50 operated by the Republic of Singapore
Air Force.
The Pope, the Head of the Catholic
Church, has followership all over the world. However, he typically flies
on a chartered Alitalia fixed-wing aircraft when travelling to or from
more distant destinations.
Traditional protocol dictates that a
Pope flies to a country he is visiting on a chartered Alitalia jet and
returns on a jet belonging to a flag carrier from the visited nation,
although, this may vary when he is touring multiple nations.
The size of the PAF has been a subject
of public condemnation since the government of former President
Jonathan, and even up till date because Nigerians have started asking
questions on Buhari’s silence over the issue since his assumption of
office.
For instance, a former President of the
Nigerian Bar Association, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), had earlier asked
Buhari to commence reforms in the aviation sector by converting the PAF
to passenger planes.
Agbakoba said redeploying all the
aircraft in the PAF to passenger planes to form of a new national
carrier would generate revenue for the country.
However, some people have argued that
this would take some time to be achieved with a non-existent national
carrier at the moment.
But one thing most Nigerians seem to have in common is the opinion that having 10 aircraft in the PAF is outrageous.
Capt. Dele Ore, Chairman of Aviation
Roundtable, an industry pressure group, who was incidentally in charge
of the presidential fleet between 1976 and 1980, described having up to
10 aircraft in the PAF as “unruly.”
Ore, who said Nigeria had three aircraft
in the presidential fleet between the period he was in charge of the
fleet, said it was not too large to manage at the time.
He, however, said that the President would need at least four aircraft in his fleet to prevent him from getting stranded.
He said, “It was manageable at the time
because the fleet had three aircraft. But in addition, the Nigeria
Airways aircraft for the long range intercontinental flight was always
readily available (for the use of the president), in which way, its
inside décor would be changed, and its seats would be converted to
executive; press room, state room and all that would be included.
“So if one aircraft was available out of
the Nigeria Airways fleet and it was running the fleet with three other
aircraft, it means that the President will need at least four aircraft.
So the number touted to be 10 or 13 or thereabout is too unruly.
“You must look at the utilisation, you
need an aircraft that can be used within the country, you need aircraft
that can go across Africa and you need an aircraft that can go to
Europe.
“And then most of the time, the crew
that accompanies the President can be so large that two aircraft may not
be able to accommodate them. I would believe that when you have so many
aircraft as it is now, it doesn’t make good for efficiency and it also
gives room for problems of crewing. If you use about four, you must know
that number two is a backup for number one, number three is a backup
for the others. There must be a backup because one aircraft can be
unserviceable and you can’t keep the president stranded.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Centurion
Aviation, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (retd.), also said it would not be
ideal for a President to have only one aircraft for his or her use.
He said, “If you are going to have an
aircraft which you want to run effectively, you must have one on
standby. If we say the President must have an aircraft to himself, there
must always be an alternative to that one aircraft because anything can
happen to it at anytime. An aircraft always goes for maintenance.”
However, Ojikutu said the need for the
President to have more than one aircraft “does not justify the number of
aircraft they claim the president has now.”
He said, “If you want to run about three
routes like a regular airline, you will probably need four aircraft so
that you can keep one on standby because one of them is likely to break
down and you can’t afford to keep the President stranded at the airport.
“So, the point is that if the President
has an aircraft to himself, he does not need more than one and a standby
for it, so invariably, he will have two. I have heard people saying so
many figures like 20 aircraft in the presidential fleet, but the
question is ‘who are those using them?’ But the thing is that if he must
have an aircraft, there must be a standby.
“What I consider economically viable is
for the President to use any of the Nigerian fleet, for instanc,e if the
President is going to Lagos and the Presidential fleet is down, we can
convert any of the local airlines’ planes quickly into executive for
him? That is why the Presidents of some countries fly the national
airlines, including the Pope. There must always be an alternative but
that doesn’t justify 10 aircraft in the fleet.”
Ojikutu also disagreed with Buhari’s
plan to resuscitate the Nigeria Airways and move the aircraft under the
control of the carrier.
He said, “It was corruption that killed
the Nigeria Airways, so it will not allow Buhari to resuscitate it and
move the aircraft to the carrier. The same corruption is with the
private airlines. So, if he does that, they will run the national
carrier worse than the private airlines are being currently run.
“There is none of the national airlines
that is viable. The only thing we require is very good regulation but
government’s interference is not allowing the regulation to adequately
operate.”
