Nigeria Air Acting Managing Director Reveals More Facts On Buhari Government’s ‘Fraudulent’ Launch Of Airline

It was earlier reported that lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Tuesday confirmed its report that Buhari’s administration deceived Nigerians by unveiling a Boeing 737-800 aircraft belonging to Ethiopian Airlines as a “Nigerian Air” plane.

The acting Managing Director of Nigeria Air, Captain Dapo Olumide, on Tuesday, revealed more facts about the ‘fraudulent’ launching of the airline by the former President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

SaharaReporters earlier reported that lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Tuesday confirmed its report that Buhari’s administration deceived Nigerians by unveiling a Boeing 737-800 aircraft belonging to Ethiopian Airlines as a “Nigerian Air” plane.

It was reported that the plane unveiled by the administration as Nigerian Air a few days before Buhari left office, was over 10 years old and belonged to Ethiopian Airlines.

Its registration number is ET-APL.

Information obtained by SaharaReporters from Plane Spotters, a platform which takes an inventory of aircraft, revealed its Mode is S Q4005C and its Serial Number is 40965/4075.

It noted, “The first flight was an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft. Then it became Malawi Airlines on 16th February 2014. It was then acquired again by Ethiopian Airlines in 2015 and has been operating under Ethiopian Air since then.

“Then on the 26th of May 2023, it has Nigeria Air colours without changing ownership. It was first spotted in South Africa before it flew to Nigeria today.”

On Tuesday when Captain Olumide appeared before the Senate Committee on Aviation, he confirmed that the aircraft that flew in with the logo of Nigeria Air was chartered from the Ethiopian Airline for the purpose of unveiling the Nigeria Air logo.

Olumide told the Senate Committee that Nigeria does not have an operating licence for full flight operations, noting that the processes to acquire the license were still in the early stages.

He noted that the Buhari-led government used the chartered Ethiopian aircraft to show Nigerians and investors what the logo looks like.

According to the Acting MD, Nigerians have been seeing only the pictures of Nigeria Air since 2018 as the country does not have three aircraft required to secure the operational licence.

Olumide said, “The aircraft that came in and left was a legitimate charter flight. Anyone of us here if we have a destination wedding in Senegal, we can charter an aircraft.

“You don’t need to have a licence to do that, you just charter an aircraft, an aircraft you paid for it, it will be brought here, take your passengers and off you go, and that is what we did. but in this case, it was to unveil the Logo of Nigeria Air.

“Ever since 2018, all you have ever seen about Nigeria Air were pictures, drawings not the real aircraft, and we thought it was time to show what the real aircraft will look like, also to let shareholders see.

“We have institutional investors, they are not in aviation but they are putting their money for 10 to 15 years, so they need to see what the actual aircraft will look like.

“So we brought it in here to show them what the aircraft will look like, then the social media dimension came into it.

“For us to get that licence which is my mandate, we must among other things have three aircraft before the NCAA will give us a licence and those three aircraft must be Nigerian registered aircraft.

“So when this aircraft came on a chartered flight, everybody said we have launched Nigeria Air, there are learned people in the aviation industry who could have countered that when social media came out, but they chose not to.”

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that earlier, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Biodun Olujimi, said during the meeting that the former Minister of Aviation did not involve the committee and other stakeholders in the Nigeria Air project.

Senator Olujimi said, “To state the obvious, he failed to carry members of the Committee along in virtually all ramifications despite the degree of respect members accorded him any time he was invited for meetings.”