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Ministry of Aviation mess: conflict of interest, mismanagement and nepotism prepare Nigeria for further air travel tragedy

May 27, 2009

Despite the yearning of Nigerians and visitors for safer skies following recent crashes and near-crashes, the Ministry of Aviation seems bent for hell. 
 


One example: the Director of Engineering Services does not have a degree in engineering, knows no engineering and is not even a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) and the Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN).  His name is Mazi Nnamdi Udoh, and he is the operative saddled with the task of signing-off on Factory Acceptance Tests for the multi-billion Euros Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria Project (TRACON). 

How do you get such a critical but specialized job when you lack the requisite skills and experience?  Connections: You get it by being appointed by an uncaring godfather who has no interest in the public good.  Mazi Udoh was appointed to the position by a thieving Minister, Babatunde Omotoba, who is hell-bent on creaming-off the project.  Udoh is his go-betwen with Mr. Emmanual Ojei, the businessman who owns the Nigerian company engaged to execute the Radar project on-behalf of Thales of France.

To Mr. Udoh has fallen the task, in a country of over 150 million people and countless engineers, of managing a project of such magnitude.  Several questions arise in the minds of members of the public using our airspace daily: How can an illiterate sign-off on such a complex project without compromising safety standards?

And: "Is it not un-ethical for a non-registered member of the engineering professional groups to be appointed to, or to accept an engineering project?

The obvious point that TRACON has a direct bearing on the safety of the travelling public does not seem to be important to Minister Omotoba, who must be salivating at the heavy loot from Nuel Ojei that Omotoba will deliver in due course while the Nigerian public is exposed to further horrendous air disasters. 
 
The biggest scam about to happen is the proposed commissioning of the Abuja Radar project by the Supreme Court-appointed President, Umaru Yar'adua. How can a leader sleep at night when he accepts an invitation by his Minister to commission just one radar in the nine-9-Radar TRACON proejct?

“If the President knew his left from his right,” an analyst told SaharaReporters, “why would he not insist that the entire project be completed before it is graced with Presidential presence, as is the standard practice?”

That is unlikely to happen in a political pantomime in which an inept and corrupt Minister pulls the strings of his own purse, and appoints an illiterate to office as the NAMA Director of Engineering.  The Nigerian leader can hardly claim not to be of a scam aimed at perpetuating failure in our civil aviation sector, and grief among the Nigerian people as they lose valuable lives. 
 
There are many other riddles in the sector.  Among them is this: how can the Chief Regulator of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority; Dr. Harold Demuren, function in that capacity when he is also on the board of Afrijet airline?

In other words, how can an airline operator become a regulator, and whose interest does he protect: his airline, or the public?  But this is Nigeria where it is said that "anything goes". 
It is also instructive that the training that Chief Regulator Demuren has is a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. His M.Sc and P.hD are in Transport Management.  Ideally, he would be in the precincts of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), not pretending he has an interest in the welfare of Nigerian air travelers. 
 
And if anyone cares about the connection between the Minister Omotoba and the newly appointed FAAN Director of procurement, SaharaReporters can announce that they are cousins!

Despite these mounting revelations of assorted conflicts of interest and nepotism, who is looking out for Nigerians?  Who is protecting our people and the image of our people?  

At the operative level, Aviation Minister Omotoba is known to be inept; a man who keeps documents and files on his desk for weeks on end, unattended, in a sector that is rapidly evolving and requires an active manager.

The answer is probably to wait until aircraft are falling out of our airspace or crashing into each

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