By Sade Williams
Hadi Sirika, Minister of State, Aviation, on Sunday explained reasons for what he called re-organisation in aviation agencies, saying there is no relationship between the development and the unscheduled visit of Pro. Yemi Osinbajo, Vice-President to the Murtala Muhammed International airport, last week.
Speaking through James Odaudu, Deputy Director, Press in the Ministry of Aviation, Sirika said the re-organisation in the Agencies is part of an ongoing process to reposition them to properly and adequately carry out their regulatory mandates.
He said however, that Osinbajo’s visit was to assess the state of facilities at the nation’s number one airport, and to see possible areas of immediate attention, insisting that there is no basis linking the two events.
On Thursday February 23rd, 2017, Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, in company of the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, undertook an inspection visit to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
“It must be made clear that the link between the two events has no basis, as the re-organisation in the Agencies is part of an ongoing process to reposition them to properly and adequately carry out their regulatory mandates.
“Recall that the Buhari Administration, at inception, placed Aviation among top priority areas that would be reorganised and repositioned to contribute more to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product and develop as a sub-regional hub for air transportation.
“It therefore amounts to an error of judgment to attribute the re-organisation efforts to the visit of the Acting President to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos”, he said.
The clarification is coming as some sections have linked the sack by the Federal government of five directors in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), to the visit by Osinbajo because the two events happened few days apart.
