The Nigerian aviation industry will still for a long time remember the sun shine brought into the sector by Dr. Olusegun Harold Demuren when the sector was experiencing its dark days owing to frequent air crashes that casted a shadow over the sub-sector.
This is even more so as the aviation sector is currently going through difficult times, albeit, not with air crashes, but with the challenge of forex, a situation that has forced some foreign carriers to exit the industry and has caused some domestic airlines to close shop.
Dr Harold Demuren former DG, NCAA and Mr Chris Aligbe CEO Belujane Konzult, and other aviation experts will be speaking on “The State of aviation and Why airlines Fail” at the 12th edition of Akwaaba Travel and Tourism conference billed to hold 31st of October 2016 at Eko Hotel and Suites.
On how Demuren transformed civil aviation in Nigeria, the period under focus runs from 2006 to 2016. Although the current Director-General of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Usman Murhtar, who assumed duties in October 2014 is still in his first tenure, this year marks a full decade from 2006 when Dr. Segun Demuren was appointed to run NCAA.
This ten-year history and analysis has become so cogent in the face of apparent amnesia that afflicts much of the comments, analyses and perspectives on civil aviation regulation and indeed on NCAA.
The present, they say, usually comes out of the past, while the future is a product of the present. So, in a country like ours where there is either no history or there is amnesia about history; trend analysis, conclusions and projections are often flawed. This is our predicament not only in the aviation sector but in virtually all aspects of our national life. This unfortunate situation has been exacerbated by the removal of History from our school curriculum. No wonder our children know nothing about the Nigerian Civil War, Lander Brothers, Mungo Park, Lord Lugard and 1914 amalgamation, let alone the great Empires of Benin, Oyo, Sokoto and IKanem Bornu or Nigeria’s great effort and sacrifice in the liberation of Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Apartheid South Africa. This 10-year reflection on aviation regulation therefore, is an attempt to de-activate the present insipid analyses of various “Aviation Experts”, as well as provide historical facts and basis for genuine students of aviation studies with a view to engendering fair-minded incisive commentaries on aviation regulation trend in our country.
When Dr. Demuren was appointed by President Obasanjo in 2006, it was in an appropriate response to the fate of a bleeding nation whose aviation environment had been turned into literally, an Akeldama; the field of blood, where the trio of Bellview, Sosoliso and ADC airlines, between 2005 and 2006, killed over 340 Nigerians in the most fatal air crashes in the annals of our aviation history.
It was on the spur of the inconsolable sorrowful out-pouring of the Enemoh’s over their breadwinner, Mr. Enemoh of IPMA (Belview), the Ilabor’s who lost all their children as well as the 50 Loyola Jesuit College families, along with the Odukoya family of the scintillating preacher, Bimbo Odukoya (Sololiso) and the Maccido family of Sultan Maccido (ADC) all of whom led the pack in the three fatal air crashes.
The crashes were no doubt the immediate incentive for Demuren’s appointment. But a peep into fifteen years before Demuren (2006-1991) will reveal incredible decadence, impunity, arrogance of power, ignorance and declivity in a nation’s aviation history. Milestones of this era, include, but not limited to the following:
Between 1991 and 1993, an Aircraft Leasing Company, International Aircraft Leasing Company (IALC), spent time and resources disparaging both the Nigerian Government and the aviation Industry at over 12 International conferences for failure to cause Barnax Airline to return 3 aircraft leased from it. The leasing company had mischievously leased 3 Boeing 737-200 aircraft that were due for heavy maintenance checks only 3 months away to a Nigerian Generator Merchant, owner of Barnax Airline, who neither had an iota of knowledge of aircraft nor sought the assistance of aircraft engineers. He thus could not operate.
Angered by this, he grounded the aircraft in Port Harcourt Airport and prevented the Leasing Company from repossessing them. IACL in its three years of campaign of calumny, devastatingly damaged Nigeria’s image. Capt. Joji, then Nigeria Airways Managing Director, engaged the company in a war of words in a Cairo Conference in 1992, and in 1993 I engaged them at Nick Fadugba’s conference in Nairobi. But the damage had been done. Nigeria had become a high risk country for leasing, and repossession insurance doubled. Domestic airlines could no longer bear the cost of leasing healthy aircraft and so resorted to junks. It took a law suit filed by Prince Tony Momoh, journalist and lawyer, now politician of the change mantra to enforce repossession of the 3 B737s.
Apart from Nigeria Airways, ADC, Belview, most other airlines – Okada, Albarka, Chanchangi, even Sosoliso and others resorted to BAC 1-11, Tupolev and Yakolev DC8, DC9, MD81 and MD82. Nigeria became a grave yard for junk aircraft. Such was the situation that Nsikak Eduok, Aviation Minister then, described Domestic airline aircraft as “flying coffins”. And he was correct. It was a period when airlines did not respect their internal procedures; did not respect the Minimum Equipment List (MEL), did not bother about pilots’ airworthiness and pilots meeting laid down requirements before taking command. It was a period when pilots were induced with money to make as many landings as they could without regard to crew rest time rules. It was a period that airlines cut corners, falsified records in their technical logs and told lies to NCAA about their operational and technical status. It was an era when NCAA officials closed their eyes to infractions, even deadly infractions by operators. It was a period when Ministers and politicians, personally or indirectly, certified aircraft airworthiness or directed issuance of AOC to non-existent airline.
Although Demuren did not have a direct personal experience with many of these, he however knew that so much had gone amiss with the industry. Armed with aeronautical engineering degrees from two of the world’s best Universities – Kiev in Ukraine and MIT in the US, his earlier working experience at FCAA as well as a strength of character; on assumption of duty, Demuren set about addressing the critical challenges of regulation; a regulatory framework and appropriate manpower, both of which NCAA then did not have.
He first assembled tested professionals from within and outside the industry, and, strengthened by a palpable commitment of the industry as well as the honourable KGB Oguakwa led-National Assembly Aviation Committees and the aspirations of the citizenry, working together, Demuren produced the first regulatory framework document; the NCAA Act of 2006, for the regulation of the industry.
With the Act, Demuren began to build a strong foundation for the industry regulation. Luckily for him, the government in its perverse wisdom, had liquidated Nigeria Airways in 2003 and threw into the job market, a generation of highly seasoned aircraft maintenance engineers, pilots and cabin crew. Demuren harnessed many of these, who joined NCAA as contract staff, as veritable hands-on materials for casting the foundation.
For the next four years, Demuren settled down to turnaround the sordid image and reputation of the industry.
He was able to enforce the regulatory independence of the Authority to almost 100 percent level. During the period, under him, Nigeria attained FAA Category 1 status which indicated a high safety record and procedures. Also in a bid to address the Barnax Airline albatross, Demuren made great efforts to ensure that Nigeria not only acceded to, but also domesticated in time the Cape Town Convention on Mobile equipment to meet the set deadline. Thus, he opened up access for Nigerian airline operators to lease or acquire more modern generation aircraft. By 2009, FAA, ICAO and UK as well as European CAA have given up their reservations about the regulatory regime in Nigeria.
By 2010, Demuren’s successes had become global and dwarfed NCAA. In fact, his name was coterminous with NCAA and even Nigerian Aviation and had become both a domestic and global brand.
Over these years, the focus of the NCAA was safety, safety, safety but nothing significant was done in the area of Economic Regulation and Consumer Protection. Over these years, the Nigerian passengers’ rights remained some of the most abused by both domestic and international airlines. Passengers had no reprieve from the negative impacts of monopolies, at the domestic level and market dominance, cooperative duopolies as well as price fixing by some legacy airlines at the international level. The only dampers to these exploitations were African and Middle East airlines, particularly in the area of fares. Not until 2010-11 when NCAA, taking a cue from the US and European regulatory authorities, discovered that the two British Carriers – BA and Virgin, for many years before 2006, fleeced their Nigerian passengers with hidden charges before NCAA came up with Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) Parts 18 and 19.
