Anxiety grips Nigeria on ICAO aviation rating

Tension seems to have gripped policy makers and other stakeholders over what might be the position of Nigeria in the next inspection visit of the aviation industry by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) towards the end of 2016.

The anxiety is coming on heels of a statement credited to the Minster of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, on Wednesday that none of Nigeria’s airports has all it takes to stand on its own.

He had frowned at the fact that despite its potentials, to do between 70 and 100 million passengers annually, Nigeria is performing far below par, at 15 million annual passengers, adding that improvement can only come if private investors are allowed to run the sector.

But officials of the regulatory bodies in the industry, Nigerian Civil Aviation Agency (NCAA), Federal Airports Authority (FAAN) and the workers union described the minister’s statement as having come at a wrong time that the country is expecting ICAO to return to conclude its inspection of Nigeria’s airports and aviation facilities.

It will be recalled that ICAO President, Dr. Bernard Aliu, had at his visit last year scored Nigeria above average on security surveillance after a tour of the four international airports.

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He said that the country surprised his team on the level of achievement on security, despite the challenges that it was facing on that regard, but noted that certain level of achievements were still needed for the upgrade of Nigeria into an international hub status.

Experts said ICAO had set aside a five-year infrastructure-based development among its 191 member-countries for possible upgrade to regional and international hub, with Nigeria considered as one of them.

But another agency, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its announcement of global passenger traffic results for July, released Thursday showed an improvement in what it described as “demand growth over the previous five months” in Nigeria.

However, this has not reduced fears being entertained on the outcome of the position of Nigeria against other regional competitors, especially Ghana, which has been getting more attention in the sector against Nigeria since march 2016 when the economic recession was officially recognized as stalling growth of many sectors in Nigeria.

The critical situation that Nigeria is facing in this is not helped by recently announced suspension of flights activities by two airlines, Aero Contractors and First Nation airline.

Nigeria has five international airports out of which three belong to states governments, though flights are regulated by NCAA from all of them.

By Emma Eke….

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