FG’s silence on design of Nigeria Air’s logo abroad minus for buy-Nigeria drive
The observed silence of both the Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Isah Pantami and the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, on the design of suspended Nigeria Air’s logo by a Bahraini communication firm has continued to generate criticisms.
Shortly before the sudden announcement of the suspension by the federal government two weeks ago, it was revealed that the contract for the design of the logo of troubled Nigeria Air was awarded to a Bahraini communication firm, a total negation of local content policy of the same government driven both by NITDA and Onu’s Ministry.
The contract was awarded to Form6 Communications based in Bahrain at $600,000 (about N183mn) without recourse to either Executive Order 05 which was introduced by the presidency in July to deepen local content.
Only last week in Lagos, the Minister of Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, during the launch of polyurethane laboratory donated to the University of Lagos by Vitafoam, said the Federal Government is determined to promote made-in-Nigeria products and give preference to Nigerian professionals in the execution of all government projects in a decisive move to grow the economy.
He however, refused to answer questions on why the contract of Nigeria Air logo was not given to a Nigerian firm by the Minister of State for Avaiation, Capt Hadi Sirika.
Rather he was quick to point out that for the first time in the history of Nigeria, the Federal Government had issued Executive Order 5 which made it mandatory for all government parastatals and agencies to patronise made-in-Nigeria products without compromising standards.
Onu lamented that the bane of Nigeria’s economy was over-dependence on imported goods, saying that Nigeria had over the years relied on income from commodity products, the prices of which were externally determined.
