Aviation industry wants two former Nigeria Airways staff who pocketed $17m meant to buy planes punished

INVESTIGATIONS into how the defunct national carrier Nigeria Airways went bankrupt have revealed that two members of staff given a sum of $17.6m to purchase new aircrafts diverted the money into their private accounts.

Nigeria Airways collapsed in 2003, leaving behind huge debts and a backlog of salary and pension arrears in what was one of the worst cases of corruption ever seen in the country. From the mid 1980's, the airline's accounts were not audited, it did not replace its planes and its aircraft were regularly seized abroad to pay for debts.

According to the findings of the Justice Obiora Nwazota panel set up by the Nigerian government to probe financial diversion in the former national carrier, the sum of $17.6m meant for the payment of a Boeing 737 aircraft, a ATR plane and a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aeroplane were pocketed.  As part of its recommendations, the panel directed the government to force Major General Olu Bajowa (rtd) and Captain Mohammed Joji to refund the sums to the government.

For instance, the panel recommended that General Bajowa should refund to Nigeria Airways the sum of $4.35m, which was deposited for the botched purchase of one MD 11 plane and an ATR aircraft. Also, the panel recommended that Captain Joji, an erstwhile managing director of Nigerian Airways  refund the sum of $9.8m as payments he made to an agency.

According to the panel, Captain Joji allegedly paid the sum to Sabena as commission for the purchase of the aircraft but investigations revealed that he never made such payments. Also, the panel mandated Captain Joji to refund the sum of $3,53m being the cost of the D-check on a B737 aircraft, which he said he paid for in Brazil.

At the time the government said: “Government accepts this recommendation and the Federal Ministry of Justice should explore the possibility of recovering the money. For this recklessness, and those already listed against him, government hereby bans Captain Joji from holding any public office in Nigeria and the secretary to the government of the federation is hereby directed to include this decision in the next issue of the gazette.”

Since the report was made public in 2002, a year before the liquidation of the airline, several analysts in the sector had challenged the government to implement the recommendations of that committee, but 17 years after, the government is yet to do this. Captain Dele Ore, a former president of Aviation Round Table, recently charged the government to revisit the recommendations of the Justice Nwazota Panel, which was primarily set up to look into the poor management of the defunct carrier.

Captain Ore said those indicted by the panel were still walking the streets free, alleging that they also aided the liquidation of the airline to hide their loot. He said until the government explained the reason behind the liquidation of the former national carrier and totally paid off its entire staff, the sector would not move forward.

“Justice Obiora Nwazota's recommendations are pushed aside and we are pretending nothing has happened and we want to form another carrier. If we don’t revisit it, there will not be justice in this country as the panel indicated a looting of everything that belongs to Nigeria Airways.

“It was obvious that people were out to make sure that the airline was ground to a halt and having looted all the available assets and all that, they were the ones in the forefront of misadvising the government so that their sins would not be visited upon. You can liquidate it but the spirit is still hanging around and that spirit will never die.

"People will continue to talk about it until justice is done. I have documents and the summary of the recommendations. It is sad if we don’t do anything about it,” Captain Ore added.