FAAN board inauguration, ANAP calls for more agencies board

BY CHUKWUEMEKE IWELUNMO

Following the inauguration of the Board of Directors of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) by the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, the Secretary General of the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP), Comrade AbdulRasaq Saidu, has charged the government to name the boards of other aviation parastatals without delay.

Speaking in an interview on the inauguration of the FAAN board, headed by Alhaji Gandunje, former APC chairman, Comrade Saidu said the ANAP has long been agitating for the right things to be done in the aviation sector to continue entrenching safety in the system.

According to him, “I am calling on the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to name other agencies’ board of directors for justice and equity in the system. ANAP has been calling for all the anomalies to be corrected in the aviation industry in the interest of safety”.

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Saidu noted that only the governing boards will bring discipline to the system, checkmate illegal contracts, employment and recruitment scams and oversee the day-to-day running of agencies’ activities.

According to Saidu, “Most of the employments made and contracts awarded ought to have passed through the Governing Boards of Aviation parastatals, but the situation didn’t allow it because there are no boards in place”.

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He condemned the style of Hadi Sirika’s administration as the Minister of Aviation, saying that for eight years, he never deemed it fit to inaugurate boards as announced by the then President, Mohammed Buhari.

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“ANAP has times without numbers raised this issue. The former President Buhari named some of people into various boards, but till Sirika left office, nothing was done to inaugurate the boards. It died like that, now, this administration has continued the same way”.

Saidu decried the non-compliance with the Acts setting up aviation parastatals in the appointment of board directors.

The ANAP scribe noted that there were decisions that ought to have been taken by the governing boards of these parastatals, but those decisions were solely taken by the minister.