The immediate past Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has accused the former Chairman of the House Committee on Aviation, Hon Nnolim Nnaji of demanding for five percent shares in the Nigeria Air.
But reacting to the allegation that he requested for five per cent stake in the planned Nigeria Air, Nnaji, described Sirika as a drowning man struggling to grab anything on his way to survive the barrage of attacks he had been receiving since his controversial unveiling ceremony of Nigeria Air.
Sirika made the allegation yesterday while appearing on ‘THISDAYLIVE,’ a programme monitored on Arise News to clarify controversies that trailed the haphazard unveiling of Air Nigeria on May 29 when the Buhari administration was handling over power.
Nnaji had declared the launch of Air Nigeria as a fraud and had urged the Ministry of Aviation to immediately suspend flight operations and every other actions with respect to Nigeria Air.
Members of his committee had also called for Sirika’s arrest and investigation, and had alleged that Nigeria Air was a fraud and a personal project packaged as a national project.
But Sirika in the interview alleged that Nnaji met him in private to make the demand, “for himself and his people” and said that it was the inability of the Chairman House Committee to get same that led to the current House hearing and accusations against him.
“I need to respond to my friend, the former Chairman House Committee on Aviation, Hon Nnaji, who said it was a fraud. What I said to him in private I will say it now.
He asked me to indulge him and give him five per cent stake in the airline.
“What I told him in private about that five per cent was that it belongs to the owners. I believe that if they were willing they would offer him if he had the money. It was not me giving it.
“I was not involved in the bidding process and I am very sure they would have reserved five per cent for him and his people according to him. But he should approach them to get the five percent that he needed,” Sirika said.
When prodded further, the former Aviation Minister said: “He asked me and you know I record all my things anyway. I have to be very clear. He asked me to give him five per cent of Nigeria Air and to carry him along with his people.
Read Also:
And I said to him that time: ‘Look Hon, you didn’t understand this. This is a bidding process that has taken place. And some people won’. I think he should go to those people and ask them for five percent.
“I wanted to reassure him that even the five percent held by the federal government would go to the market and he should get his money ready and buy for himself and his people according to him.”
When Siriki was pressed if Nnaji and the members of the Aviation Committee were asking to be bribed before they could support the establishment of Nigeria Air, he again responded:
“No. In other words, to be fair, he did not say other members. He said he wanted for him and his people –people could be his family, could be the members, could be the leadership. I did not know what he meant.
“But he said for him and his people five per cent. I said he should relax and approach the owners. That exactly was what I told him in camera. Remember I had been in House of Reps 20 years ago. And 10 years ago I was a Senator, so I know how the whole thing is.
‘You call for public hearing and right after the public hearing you just turn the paper and read the riot act. What is the practice in the National Assembly is that after hearing from people and the complaint, you now go and sit down as a committee.
The clerk will do their job, you now sit down, discuss the issues, raise them and approach the whole house and take the position of the house and leadership and come back and make your findings known. But not immediately by reading a riot act.
“It means it is predetermined. They asked if we are not part of this. Off course it is an executive act and function. You can’t be part of it but you have been overseeing the ministry for four years. It is now that you know that there is fraud in the airline.
“We started it in 2016. It means you did not do your work. If you have been very diligent you would have found out whether there was corruption or fraud,” Sirika said.
The former minister vehemently defended Buhari from stage-managing the controversial unveiling of Nigeria Air in Abuja, on the day of its departure, saying rather the launch was done by the consortium of owners as their marketing strategy.
He said Nigeria Air is a company known to the Nigerian law as Nigeria Air Limited.
According to him under the business structure, the federal government holds five per cent which is held in trust by Ministry of Finance Incorporated while Ethiopia, the strategic partner, holds 49 percent. The equity of the Ethiopian to their capital in the business is $250 million.
