Festus Keyamo (SAN), Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, stated that a functional aviation system in Nigeria will increase demand for the naira throughout Africa.
Keyamo stated this during a Channels Television interview earlier this week.
The minister stated that airline maintenance, repair, and overhaul are among the difficulties hurting Nigeria’s aviation industry.
The senior counsel, on the other hand, stated that the Federal Government will take strong action against those who seek licences to operate private planes but then secretly begin commercial flights.
He said, “These are things we cannot discuss before the camera because there are people within the system, bad eggs who just take gratification and endorse these (untrained) people to continue, not knowing that you are putting the flying public in danger.
“I have my intelligence report on this and I’m going to do something about it very soon. You are going to hear some kind of announcement I’ll make in the next one or two weeks on this issue including unlicensed private aircraft in commercial operations.
“These private jets, almost all of them, are operating commercial to the huge loss of revenue to the Federal Government.
“They get licences for private operations but do five to eight commercial flights a day. It’s economic sabotage and I’m not going to allow that to happen. Some people who are even my friends or friends of Mr President, we are going to come hard on all of them and perhaps ground all their planes, withdraw their licenses. We’re not going to allow that to happen.
“To the issue of training and retraining, it is in most of these private aircraft you see those who have not gone for their routine training and we have complicit people within the system, people who are supposed to check them that are not doing their job.
“I have intelligence on them and we are coming very hard on them because we have to raise revenue for the federal government, ensure that the laws are kept and that Nigerians are safe.”
Speaking on piloting the aviation industry, Keyamo said, “(It’s) an exciting experience for me. I just have to give kudos to Mr President for his vision, his dexterity.
“I don’t know how he knew that about 90% of what we have to do in aviation has to do with the interpretation of BASAs (Bilateral Air Service Agreements), enforcement of agreements, and all of that, so it’s incredible.”
The minister said President Tinubu threw him me into a natural environment, adding that, “For me, it also requires a lot of diplomatic shuttles, and funny enough, I am a fellow of international arbitration for the United Kingdom.
“So I discovered that most of this work has to do with interpretation of international agreements and all of that. So I just found myself in a natural environment and I’m loving it.”