Nigerian Airways was that started in 1958 before the discovery of oil in Nigeria died officially in 2003 as a result of many decades of unabated official corruption and the mismanagement of this airline revenues by its officials and the Aviation ministry. Nigeria is the only major oil producing and exporting country in the whole world today that has no national airline of her own despite a daily production of 2.5 million barrels of oil a day at about $100 a barrel that bring in a yearly revenue of $90 billion a year.
These officials who stole and mismanaged this airline and its huge revenues are today walking freely on the streets of Nigeria and are also enjoying their ill-gotten wealth from this defunct airline. No serious attempts have been made in the last 14 years of the Nigerian democracy to resuscitate this dead national carrier back to life. How can Nigerian government officials intentionally denied their country a huge revenue base and employment opportunities for their fellow Nigerians that a national airline carrier can make possible? Why should Nigerian government intentionally allowed other major global airline carriers to dominate her highly lucrative Nigeria's airline routes? Does Nigerian government benefit fully in a sharing formula and business partnerships with foreign airline carrier who dominate her highly travelled airline routes?
The over 10 million Nigerians in diaspora that sent home about $21 billion last year which was about 75% of the entire Nigerian national budget in 2012 have the needed financial resources to make a new Nigeria Airways a typical success story. Time in life marches on in Nigeria despite the dead Nigeria Airways that is begging for a second chance or opportunity to see life again.
No comments:
Post a Comment