The Senate will on Tuesday resume to consider various contending
national issues, including the current crisis rocking the aviation
industry.
photo The Senate will on Tuesday resume to consider various contending
national issues, including the current crisis rocking the aviation
industry.
The Senate had summoned the Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah,
and heads of agencies under the ministry to appear before it in order
to explain the real state of the aviation industry.
The decision was taken after the Senators exhaustively discussed a
motion moved by senator Hope Uzodima from Imo West Senatorial
District, who drew the attention of his colleagues to the air crash
involving a 23 year-old Propeller aeroplane on the fleet of the
Associated Airlines three weeks ago.
Uzodima had expressed concern that the incident which had left
families of the victims in agonies and pains, had underscored the need
for the country to re-examine its aviation sector to ascertain the
real causes of frequent crashes.
He also observed with regret that the propeller airplane bearing the
remains of a former governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, from
Lagos to Akure, crashed barely one minute after it took off from the
domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Ikeja.
The lawmaker also noted that the incident which was the seventh in
the series of fatal crashes that had claimed the lives of notable
Nigerians between June 2, 2012 and October 3, 2013, was "suggestive
of a deep seated systemic problem that must be resolved to avert
further occurrence."
The session, presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Senator
Ike Ekweremadu, therefore unanimously agreed to summon the aviation
minister and the chief executive officers of all the agencies under
her supervision to explain the true state of the aviation sector.
Ekweremadu, had while ruling on the submission of the senate,
clarified that the invitation of Oduah and the heads of the
aviation agencies was not an indictment of their competence.
Rather, he said the occasion would afford the aviation chiefs, an
opportunity to state their efforts at implementing past reports and
recommendations of the Senate aimed at ensuring safety and sanity in
the aviation industry.
He had said, "The observation of lapses in the aviation industry
expressed by the senators is not also an indictment of the senate
committee on aviation."
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public
Affairs, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, while briefing journalists after
the plenary said the invitation of the minister was pursuant to
section 67 (2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Abaribe added that since the invitation extended to the aviation
chiefs was for them to appear before the plenary, the minister and
her top officers would appear before the Senate after its
resumption on October 22.
Also, Abaribe had said that there was no formal allegation against
Oduah, over the N255m bulletproof car scandal before the Senate.
Meanwhile, a civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and
Accountability Project has appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to
order the sale of the two armored BMW cars bought with funds from the
Aviation Ministry for Oduah.
The group demanded that Jonathan should use the proceed to provide
compensation for families of victims of recent air accidents and also
commit part of the funds to set up a Trust Fund to jump-start genuine
reform of the aviation industry.
In a statement on Sunday by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni,
SERAP said, "Selling the cars as proceeds of corruption and using the
funds to pay compensation to families of victims of air accidents
would also have the great additional benefit of reining in endemic
corruption in the sector as perpetrators would know that they would
not be allowed to profit from their crime."
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