Aircraft under Nigeria registry more than whole of West Africa, a huge responsibility — NCAA
By Seun Ibiyemi
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has revealed that Nigeria has more aircraft in its registry than the entire West African countries put together stating that that alone shows the enormity of the task before the regulatory agency.
This is coming as it appealed to industry players and commentators not to criminalise its Director of Airworthiness, Engineer Gbolahan Abatan stressing that he (the director) followed due process after his appointment by the government.
Director General Civil Aviation ( DG-CA), Captain Musa Nuhu made this known Last week during a zoom meeting where he said the complexity of running an industry as huge as that of Nigeria is no mean feat stating that changing have to come in, as well as automation so as to free technical staff to carry out more field assessment.
Nuhu said, “The Nigerian aviation industry is very complex. We have well over 30 airports, over 500 helipads, we have over a 100 airstrips, we have over 500 aircraft on our registry, which is growing by the day, the number of airports is growing by the day.
“There are more aircraft on the Nigerian registry than the entire West African put together with the exception of Nigeria, the number of aircraft they have is not up to the Nigerian registry, the number of airports and airstrips is not up to what we have in Nigeria. The number of airlines all of them put together, they don’t have the number of AOCs in Nigeria, so i just want you to see the context of the situation.
“The complexity of the situation we have in the Nigeria aviation industry. It is very huge, complex and there are huge.
“From records, about 12 years ago, we had only 16 AOCs, right now, we have 32 AOCs, out of which 12 are scheduled operators to make you understand the complexity of the situation and we cannot keep operating the way we are operating.”
On the Director of Airworthiness Standards, the CAA also stressed that it was he (Abatan) that identified the source of fuel contamination and has done a fine job despite all unnecessary distractions.
According to the DG-CA, Engineer Abatan to his knowledge resigned from all the companies he owns to do the job he was appointed to and that he manages the crashed Jabiru light aircraft but that did not belong to him.
He said, “Some people want to demonize Engr. Gbolahan Abatan who has done a great job for us since he came onboard. Before he took over the NCAA job, he was doing well as a private entrepreneur and in line with the civil service rules, he resigned from Air First Hospitality and Tours.
“The aircraft in question doesn’t belong to him, but he manages it. I think we should not demonise him for whatever reason.
“It is very unfortunate Engineer Abatan who is a very well known and well respected and competent maintenance aircraft engineer in the industry, was made Director two/ three months ago and before that he had a job, he had a life, he had a business, he had a series of businesses which he ran.
“There were comments stating he was the owner of the Jabiru aircraft. To my understanding, he submitted letters of resignation to all his companies to avoid the issue of conflict of interest. So for some people to come online and try to drag his name through the mud is unfair and criminalizing an innocent man.
“He identified the source of contamination and he did a fine job there despite all these unnecessary distractions. All this dragging his name is not fair because he was appointed into a government position,” he mused.
