Aviation: Industry Riddled with Corruption

EFCC Chairman,   Ibrahim Lamorde

Chinedu Eze writes that the Nigerian aviation sector is full of bottlenecks and delays that are designed to exploit and strangle the growth of the industry

A visit to the Kotoka International Airport, Accra, Ghana will surprise any Nigerian, who has been hearing about the airport. He will notice to his shock that the airport is a decrepit facility, smaller than the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, but that is where the comparison favours the nation’s busiest airport
The Accra airport though decrepit, is functional. The personnel carry out their duties professionally and as small and old as it is, the airport meets all the standard practices.

It is therefore not surprising that all the airlines that operate into Nigeria also operate into the airport. All the mega carriers include British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France and others. There are also many other international carriers that also operate from the same airport, which do not operate from any airport in Nigeria.
Comparison

Ghana is approximately one-sixth the population size of Nigeria. When you see Boeing B777 and Airbus A320 deployed by these mega carriers boarding passengers at the airport, you ask yourself: Where are they going to get the passengers that will fill these wide body aircraft?

Many say that many of the passengers that travel through Ghana are Nigerians. In fact, Nigerians constitute about 50 per cent of the passengers in flights leaving Kotoka airport to the US.
The conveyor belt (carousel) at the Accra airport is old, but it is working. The immigration officers, aviation security and others efficiently carry out their duties. When you pass through the airport you feel a tinge of patriotism wafting from those airport personnel. That is what is conspicuously lacking in Nigeria.

A travel expert told THISDAY that basically it is easier to travel through Accra airport than to travel through Lagos.
“Lagos airport is stressful; check in and transfer in Accra is easy. Except for the yellow card which they have recently introduced for West Africa passengers, traveling through Ghana is good. The town is also less stressful; but Lagos airport is a mad house.”
Not only that, fares for first class and business class cabins are lower-  so a passenger flies to London from Accra at a cheaper fare.
“It is like getting two for the price of one. You visit Accra and sight see; you enjoy cheaper fare and also have your frequent flyer mileage. It is good.”
Hectic Trips

Why is travelling through the Lagos airport so hectic? First, since after the terrorist insurgency in Nigeria mobile police officials are stationed at the departure and arrival gates of the airport. The passenger meets his first challenge there. Sometimes you will ready to travel and have all your travel documents but they will find a reason to stop you until you bribe them before they let you go.
That is one. Two, when you take your luggage you intend to check in for physical search by security operatives they will openly ask you for money. If you do not seem to “cooperate”, they will find something wrong with the content of your luggage, forcing you to part with some money.

When you check in your luggage and go into the central search for screening Immigration may hold back your passport, even when you have met all the conditions to travel, until you “cooperate”. They smell a fist time traveller the way sharks smell blood and they will find something wrong with you. It is at that point you will find out how dexterously the officers have mastered the immigration laws that guides air travel.
When you have passed immigration and you are now going through screening, the aviation security will size you up and if their hunch tells them to move they will stop your bag and open it and take out something that you must not board the fight with. Then you “cooperate” and everything will be okay.

After going through screening you meet the Customs who will ask you where you are going, what are you going to do there, how much foreign currency you have. From these questions they may get something to hold you back with and for you not to miss your flight, you “cooperate.”
Then the almighty National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). They will first scrutinise you, then subtly threaten to take you for full body scanner screening. Your time is running out. If you don’t “cooperate” and “settle”, you will be taken there and you may be delayed deliberately until you miss your flight.

Porous Airport
There are two painful facts about this. One, you might have met all the criteria to travel but you might miss your flight if you do not bribe your way to the aircraft boarding gate. Two, if you are willing to bribe your way and you dress corporately, you can carry human head and go through the screening and safely board your flight. This explains why drug dealers still find their way through the airport everyday even when some of them are caught by the NDLEA.

Perhaps there could be an exception; these security operatives may never allow a bomb to escape to the aircraft. But the bribery culture that has been constituted by the security operatives is a strong culture that cannot be gnawed by all the threat made in the offices by top officials of the security agencies.
The above are the reasons why travelling through Lagos airport or any other international airport is highly stressful. And this is part of the reasons why Ghana, a small country compared to Nigeria is doing better, and Nigerians are green with envy.
On another level, the civil servants at the Ministry of Aviation have their hands stained crimson with corruption with their shameful romance with foreign airlines.

There were feeble efforts recently to review the agreement Lufthansa had with the Federal Government, which was said to have been tilted against Nigeria’s interest.

Unfavourable Agreements

The Federal Government signed an agreement with Lufthansa for the technical and manpower development of the aviation sector, including making the Nnamdi Azikiwe, International Airport, Abuja its operational hub for West Africa, some years later the members of the House of Representatives described it as a rip-off because by that deal, Lufthansa, which operates from three airports in Nigeria was exempted from paying the charges that then amounted to about N1 billion, which other international operators paid for the commercial agreement they had with Nigeria.

The aviation ministry is reeking of such unfavourable deals hatched by the top ministry officials who convince the ephemeral ministers to sign. And most of the past ministers play along and get their picks wetted.

The bureaucracy in the ministry is artificial. It is meant to force anybody who is seeking something to drop money…in foreign currency. Sometimes, the ministry officials are defiant enough to carry some people’s file to their homes and keep it there until the persons involved understand what they should do.
Last week, during the 18th Aviation and Allied Business Conference in Windhoek, Namibia, the Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr Harold Demuren, could not contain himself. He bitterly complained that Ghana takes advantage of Nigeria as far as air transport is concerned.

Bureaucratic Bottlenecks

Demuren explained that due to bureaucratic delays by Nigeria, an airline that wished to fly into the country may decide to go to Ghana after waiting many months for approval from the Federal Government as such requests do not take time to be approved in Ghana.
“All those airlines that came from the US, we brought them in and very sadly we did all these things, got Category 1 (safety status from US Federal Aviation Administration) for this our region with all the gains taken over by Ghana because we don’t take decisions quickly. When you submit a request they tell you come back next week; when you come they tell you come back next tomorrow,” Demuren remarked.

The director-general said  the airline could not wait indefinitely because it had already deployed aircraft for the route waiting for such approval that in Nigeria was gripped by bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Speaking in the same vein, aviation legal expert and senior partner in Aelex, Fubara Anga, recalled his experience when his office facilitated the operation of an international carrier to Nigeria and Ghana.

“I think the major problem is bureaucracy. I have been privileged to act for an airline that wanted to come to Nigeria and Ghana and because I have an office in Ghana, I acted for them in Nigeria and I acted for them in Ghana. We got approvals for Ghana in three months; it took us one year and three months to get approval in Nigeria. And for that reason they decided to start in Ghana because they had scheduled aircraft and if those aircraft did not go into service, they would have been taken to another area entirely.”

During the inauguration of United Airlines direct flight to Nigeria in Lagos, the then minister of aviation quipped during her address, “This is the greatest day of my life”. One critic who heard that asked, “Why is today the greatest day of her life; greater than the day she married; the day she had her first child? We know why she is so excited.”

ThisDay.