In view of the need to put facts straight on the Nigeria Air fraudulent launch during the very last working day of former President Muhammadu Buhari administration under the former Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, it is important to look back at the responses of the Acting MD of Nigeria Air, Capt. Dayo Olumide, speaking before the Senate Committee on Aviation on Tuesday this week.
Hear him unedited:
“The aircraft that came in and left was a legitimate charter flight. Anyone of us here, if we have a destination wedding in Senegal, can charter an aircraft.
“You don’t need to have a licence to do that. You just charter an aircraft – an aircraft you paid. 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.
“You see, we have institutional investors. They are not in aviation, but they are putting their money for 10 or 15 years and to exit may be at a premium. 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.
“It is an Ethiopian-registered one. Why is it Ethiopian-registered? To operate aircraft in Nigeria, they must be Nigerian-registered.
“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.”
– Capt. Dayo Olumide, Acting MD of Nigeria Air, speaking before the Senate Committee on Aviation/
