For more than eight years running, Nigeria’s aviation sector has been functioning without the statutory required board of directors for the different agencies.
As critical as the presence of the boards is meant to be for the seamless running of the agencies, the entire eight years of the last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari with Senator Hadi Sirika as the minister in charge of aviation managed the aviation agencies without constituting the governing boards for the agencies.
One of the benefits of having boards is to, apart from encouraging proper governance, help checkmate any excessiveness on the part of the ministers and the chief executives of the government owned parastatals and agencies.
It is on record that the absence of the governing boards was mostly responsible for the shenanigans perpetrated by officials who run the sector like personal enterprise without any one challenging.
All the lost hope was rekindled with the coming of the President Bola Tinubu›s government and the subsequent appointment of Mr Festus Keyamo as the minister in charge of the sector.
With the background of the minister as a legal icon, it is expected that one of his priorities will be ensuring the constitution of the governing boards which will go a long way in guiding him to achieve his six point agenda without running into the murky waters.
Sadly, almost eight months after his appointment, Keyamo is yet to constitute the governing boards amidst some controversial policies ranging on which some key players are presently tracing to the absence of the boards.
An industry body consisting of different professionals, Aviation Round Table (ART), has called on the minister to move promptly to appoint the required Boards to enable smooth and properly guided operations of the Agencies.
The call to constitute boards by ART is to allow all the agencies carry out their statutory obligations without interference from the minister.
Like the ART, the managing director of Centurion Aviation Security, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, has attributed the lack of the constituted boards to the controversy happening.
His words: “You are right, not having Boards is a major reason for what is happening between the Minister›s interferences and the agencies. The political manners the CEOs and the Directors of the agencies were brought into the management of the agencies make it difficult to work according to the Act establishing their status. Rather than being in control, it is the minister that nominated them that they listen to than the law. It is sad. We thought it would end with the last Administration unfortunately it is getting worse
For the director at Zenith Travels, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, there is the need for the governing boards to put in place to checkmate the activities of the minister.
“We need the governing boards so that the direct interference of the minister will be reduced. Since there is no board in place, the CEOs will have to move documents to the minister, they should please constitute the boards for the aviation agencies so that they can work with the act rather than reporting to the minister “.
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