Fly Nigeria Act must happen under my tenure – Keyamo

Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, on Friday, vowed that the Fly Nigeria Act will see the light of the day and come to fruition under his tenure.

The Minister lamented that the document which is expected to make it mandatory for government-financed air transportation of government personnel, contractors, grantees and properties to be carried by Nigeria Air Flag Carriers has yet to materialize more than 15 years when it was first proposed.

Speaking at a one-day “Stakeholders’ Engagement on the Legal Framework for the Fly Nigeria Bill and Related Enabling Legislation’, in Abuja, Keyamo said he would rally all the major stakeholders to push for the bill to be signed into law.

A former Minister of Aviation, Omotoba had said the bill was first put together more than 15 years ago while he was Minister in charge of the ministry and commended Mr. Keyamo for the new drive and passion to finally bring the bill to reality.

Allen Onyema, the Vice President of the Airline Operators of Nigeria AON and Chairman of Air Peace and Obiora Okonkwo, AON spokesperson and Chairman of United Nigeria Airline,   described the move as a new dawn for the country’s aviation and domestic Airlines in Nigeria.

Keyamo said “This has been on the cards for some time, for many years, more than 15 years because I think my predecessor, Omotoba served more than 15 years ago. So you can imagine that this bill was taken to council more than 15 years ago and yet it did not see the light of day. Under my tenure, it will happen.”

“We just want to get things done. And so when I came to the office I saw a couple of these things hanging on my desk like the Cape Town Convention to the cry of the Aviation Working Group and all the proposals that have been made to former governments to develop especially indigenous industry, a local industry. And what we did was to say look let us revive all of these dead things on my table that would help or that will help to develop our local industry.”

“And one of them of course is the Fly Nigeria Act. Luckily Olisa Agbakoba was also talking to me about it. He had brought a proposal.

This had been on the card like the Cabotage Act too. It’s like the Cabotage Act you see in the blue economy sector too. So I wonder, I was telling myself if the Cabotage Act had been passed to favour ships that fly the Nigerian flag and this had been passed long ago, what is the problem with aviation? It tells you that there’s a certain external cabal in the aviation industry that seeks to destroy your indigenous markets so that they can come and feed on that market.”

” It’s a global conspiracy but you have to be smart to see it. Look at the entire African continent. Just look at it. All the foreign airlines in the world, they feed on the African markets without the competition of African Airlines, without fair competition from African Airlines. And they will ensure that this aviation market in Africa remains taunted. Especially in a big country like Nigeria, they will ensure that it remains taunted so that they will continue to feed on your markets.”

“Air France is coming here full, going back full. Both sides are Nigerians inside. You expect that when they are leaving their country, okay, many of them would be that you have foreigners coming in and Nigerians going out. But both sides are Nigerians coming in and going out. Delta, the United from America, Lufthansa, British Airways, name all of them, all of them, all the foreign airlines. We thank them for their partnership and all that but I’m not condemning them.  I’m saying that we must also develop our own to compete fairly. We just want to compete fairly. Qatar, Emirates, all of them.”

“So the global conspiracy, it is aviation you know politics all over the world, global policy, aero politics. They do it in such a way very cleverly that they don’t want your local market, your local indigenous airlines to, you know, to grow so that they keep feeding on that market. So it is for us to be wise enough to see this and to come up with policies, policies, policies that will then empower our local operators to match them on the negotiation table.”

“And this is one of the latest in this series of actions we lined up. More are coming through to empower them and to make sure they survive. Say how do we then create the market for them?

“We are saying the summary of the Fly Nigeria Act is that every government funded trip, every government, whether what ministry or agency at all, if there is a Nigerian flag carrier flying that route, even locally, regionally, internationally, you must patronize the Nigerian flag carrier first before any foreign carrier. That’s a summary but you know the details, the devil are in the details. You will see the details, I will say that.”

Earlier a representative from the Olisa Agbakoba Legal firm had presented the proposed bill titled ‘A Proposal on Aviation Reform by Enacting The Fly Nigeria Act.’