When former President Muhammadu Buhari named boards of aviation agencies hours before his exit on May 29, 2023, it was clear to many that it was a Greek gift which might not excite many stakeholders. This was coming after eight months of agitation, protest and complaints by stakeholders who frowned at the running of the six aviation agencies without statutory boards contrary to the Acts establishing them.
Former minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, resisted tremendous pressure to constitute the boards of aviation agencies throughout his eight-year stint as minister.
The affected agencies are the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian College of Aviation (NCAT), Zaria, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) – formerly the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB).
Daily Trust reports that the Act of each of the agencies specifically makes provision for the composition of governing boards to run the organisation. The intent is to ensure that there is corporate governance in the running of the agencies while deepening quality of decisions and policy implementation.
Part 2 (5) of the NCAA Act 2022 reads: 5.—(1) There is established for the Authority, a Governing Board (in this Act referred to as “the Board”).
“The Board shall consist of — (a) a Chairman ; (b) one representative each, who shall be within the directorate cadre, from the Federal Ministry for the time being responsible for — (i) Aviation, and (ii) Defence; (c) the Director-General of the Authority.
The chairman and members of the Board other than the Director-General shall be appointed on a part-time basis by the President on the recommendation of the Minister.”
For the NIMET Act, Part 1, subsection Two reads: “There is established for the Agency a Governing Board (in this Act referred to as “the Board”) which shall consist of — (a) a part-time Chairman ; (b) a representative each not below the rank of a director from the Federal Ministries responsible for — (i) Aviation, (ii) Agriculture and Natural Resources, (iii) Environment, (iv) Transportation, and (v) Water Resources ; (c) two other persons with cognate experience in meteorological matters representing public interest; and (d) the Director-General of the Agency.
“The chairman and other members of the Board other than ex[1]officio members as specified in subsection (1) (b) shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Minister.”
The other agencies also have similar provisions for statutory boards in running their affairs.
Findings by Daily Trust, however, indicate that the last time the agencies had governing boards was during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Former minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah who served in the ministry from July 2011 to February 2014, dissolved the boards and since then the agencies have been run without boards in violation of the Acts establishing them.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari, during his first term, announced boards for the agencies in December 2017 but they were never inaugurated. It was learnt that the membership violated the provisions of the Acts which stipulated the requisite qualifications they must possess.
Since then, no new board was named until May 29 when the outgoing Minister issued a statement announcing new board members.
But the new members were never inaugurated until the new president announced the dissolution of all board members.
To many stakeholders in the aviation sector, the former minister shouldn’t have announced the boards in the twilight of his administration, and after ignoring entreaties for eight years.
With Festus Keyamo now in the saddle, stakeholders are expressing optimism that he would allow the agencies to run professionally by urgently recommending the composition of the boards to the president.
Group Capt. John Ojikutu, a former secretary general of the Aviation Roundtable said, “It is only the boards that can give the public the true state of the agencies and not the minister, or even the agencies themselves.
“The interference of the Ministry of Aviation in the management of the agencies and the minister acting as the CEO does not give the true pictures of the agencies’ capacities, capabilities and performances. There is the need for the boards of management of the agencies. There is also the need to allow the NCAA to perform its oversight and enforcement of the safety and security regulations on all the operators.
“These are the statutory requirements and responsibility of the NCAA while the ministry should be responsible only for policy formulation and generation, and the implementation is that of the operators under the regulations oversight and enforcement of the regulatory authority, the NCAA.”
A former rector of NCAT, Capt. Samuel Caulcrick, said it has become a norm that successive ministers don’t want to compose boards of agencies.
He said, “I still don’t understand what the ministers really gain when they refuse to constitute a board. There must be something they are gaining. I know they like to have full control over the CEOs because the moment the board comes in, they have lost that control because it’s now the board that rules according to the Act.
“Even while I was there (as NCAT rector) I didn’t have any board. A lot of people shouted but the board was not constituted. The board ensures corporate governance. Instead of the minister using his whim and caprice to dictate what is supposed to happen, the board will sit because the board is not only one person. The board is made up of both the CEO and other members politically appointed, or whatever it is, and that means there is democracy in that decision.”
Former General Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Olayinka Abioye said, “Establishing governing boards for our agencies is in tandem with ease of doing business. When the board is in place, the power of the subsisting minister is reduced while the board and the management take full charge of the agencies with each performing assigned functions in the best interests of these agencies.
“I am, however, worried that setting up these boards may not meet with the expectations of some of the CEOs who may be afraid of the boards breathing down their necks for one thing or the other. We have seen it before when a board in the days of the NCAA had already approved the concessioning of our Engineering Department to another company through Devcom Merchant Bank. We saw the percentage the members will be entitled to and by His grace, the unions put a stop to that venture.”
The Secretary General of the Aviation Roundtable, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, said it was sad that the former administration ignored the call for the composition of the boards.
“Sadly the former minister knew the benefit of a governing board because he personally supervised the new bill of the agencies that was signed into law under his watch and all the agencies have that clause of a prevailing board.
“Unfortunately, we did not get that from him until the last minute; and at the last minute what we saw were cronies and supporters of the Nigerian Air who were hurriedly put together to form the board.
“We called on the new minister on his first day that inauguration of the board is imperative and I think the minister should inaugurate the board and also they need to institute an urgent staff and financial audit of all the agencies…”
The spokesman of the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace, Mr. Tunde Moshood, promised to get back to our correspondent on the minister’s stand on the issue but pointed out that it’s not going to be the minister’s sole decision to compose the boards of the agencies.
