Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah is set to present the new national carrier to President Goodluck Jonathan today in spite of glaring adequacies in the arrangement.
This is coming on the heels of the scandal which trailed the acquisition of two armoured cars for the minister by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, at hyper-inflated rate of N255m.
Sunday Mirror authoritatively learnt yesterday that preparations are in top gear to present to President Jonathan today a refurbished aircraft of over 20 years old as one of the airplanes for the national carrier.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the aircraft, a Boeing 737-400 with the registration number 5N-BLC was parked at the Execu Jet, a private maintenance hangar facility at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos having arrived in the country on Tuesday night. The aircraft, our correspondent gathered, was one of the old aircraft formerly operated by Air Nigeria.
It was also gathered that the Ministry of Aviation had changed the name of the proposed national carrier from ‘Nigeria One’ to ‘Nigeria Eagle’, the name previously used by Air Nigeria before it was changed. In the new national carrier, Air Nigeria’s (Nigeria Eagle) fleet is expected to combine with the fleet of another airline, Aero Contractor.
Aero presently has about 12 aircraft in its fleet while Air Nigeria before it suspended operations equally had about 12 aircraft.
Our correspondent gathered that apart from the combination of the two airlines, about 10 other aircraft have been booked with Bombardier Aircraft Manufacturing Company based in Brazil by the government. The delivery of the 10 aircraft is expected to commence from March 2014.
Oduah had told aviation stakeholders and professionals that the proposed national carrier would be handled by private investors while government would only provide enabling environment for the investors.
With this latest information, the investors behind the new carrier are still shrouded in mystery just as the equity ratio of government and the investors in the national carrier.
Also, the routes allocation to the carrier is still shrouded in secrecy as the government has kept mute on the deal. Attempts to contact the Special Assistant, Media to the minister, Mr. Joe Obi, proved abortive as his mobile lines could not connect
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