Festus Keyamo, minister of aviation and aerospace development
Sade Williams/Business a.m.
The doggedness and painstaking efforts of Festus Keyamo, minister of aviation and aerospace development, and Chris Najomo, director general, civil aviation, were responsible for Nigeria’s achievement during the recently concluded International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) conducted Universal Security Audit Programme-Continuous Monitoring Approach (USAP-CMA) in the country’s aviation industry.
Michael Achimugu, director, public affairs and consumer protection, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), made this assertion while affirming that Keyamo and Najomo were pivotal to the ICAO’s 71.04 percent rating following their leadership skills and dexterity in mobilising manpower and resources to ensure all open gaps were closed else Nigeria would have scored 30 percent in the final outcome.
He described as mischievous comments in some quarters that both the minister and the DG, CAA, were responsible for the allegedly poor ratings the country achieved affirming that both came into office barely months ago and went to work immediately to improve on the deteriorating infrastructure and poor remunerations of workers they met on ground.
Achimugu said: “Six months ago, we met a dilapidated industry with poor infrastructure. The security and safety issues did not start in the last six months. Safe for the tireless efforts of the honourable minister and the DGCA, what we met on the ground would not have scored 30 percent in the audit.
“Going by what was on the ground when Keyamo and Najomo assumed office, the current score is a substantially good showing, a miracle if I must say. The narrative being pushed out is just part of the larger strategy to push out Keyamo and Najomo from office. It is the handwork of paid mercenaries who have just one task.”
He affirmed that “The ICAO auditors praised our performance during their final briefing at the NCAA. They even mentioned a scenario where they complained about an absent infrastructure but, to their pleasant surprise, it had been made available the very next day! They said that only Nigeria moves at such a pace in the face of criticism. If the ICAO experts were pleased, who are these puff puff experts to try to deceive the people?”
Speaking further, Achimugu explained that: “We have actual Intel about a media team being commissioned to cause continuous chaos until Keyamo is either removed or moved elsewhere because certain people want to take back ownership of the contracts they were busy allocating themselves and family members while critical infrastructure was growing dilapidated, we will resist every attempt to deceive the Nigerian people,” he added.
According to him, “Keyamo did not become one of the ‘starboys’ of this administration by doing nothing. He spent his first six months unbundling the rot in the system. Sadly, the rot runs so deep that six months are not enough to scratch the surface. They know this and it is why they are relentless in their fight. But the minister and this NCAA will do everything to sanitise aviation. We are working and it is evident,” the NCAA image maker further affirmed.
