Bi-Courtney To Resume Work On Lagos Airport Hotel

Aviation Nigeria

Work is set to resume on the hotel and conference centre projects owned by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operator of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2), Ikeja. The twin projects are located opposite MMA2, also operated by BASL.

Sources in Bi-Courtney said the contractor for the projects, Stabilini Visinoni, would soon mobilise to site and complete the two projects “once and for all”.

According to the source, “all is now set for our contractor to move to site and see to the end of the projects, which have been there for a few years now. This time, we are determined to complete the projects and change the face of the Murtala Muhammed Airport environment for the better”.

The two projects have become a subject of litigation between Bi-Coutney and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the lessor of the land in which they are sited, following which a Federal High Court barred the agency from tampering with the project and the lease agreement in any form whatsoever.

The firm and the agency had entered into a 40 years lease agreement over the land on February 2, 2007.

But, while the projects were ongoing, a dispute arose over the lease agreement following which Bi-Courtney challenged the purported revocation of the lease by FAAN at the Federal High Court.

The matter, however, took a new turn as Justice Mohammed Idris assumed jurisdiction on the suit, despite the preliminary objection filed by the Federal Government.

The judge said Bi-Courtney’s action was properly filed, adding that “it is competent and the court has jurisdiction to hear it”.

In two letters, dated April 19, 2012, FAAN had informed Bi-Courtney that the leases granted it in respect of the two projects had been terminated. The agency hinged its action on alleged breaches committed in the agreements signed on the projects.

The court consequently stopped FAAN from interfering in the projects paving the way for Bi-Courtney to resume work.

Source: flynaija

Conspiracy to undo Jonathan at all cost in the name of Aviation

Usman Abubakar

Sun Tzu says ‘Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Thrice is enemy action.’ But when an individual or institution receives continued bashing even when it deserves praise, then this can only be translated as the tell-tale signs of a grand conspiracy.

For if not the hatching of a conspiracy, what else could be the root cause of a clearly coordinated and sequential series of attacks beginning with the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Finance and now the Ministry of Aviation? What other conclusion could be more firm than the assessment that these attacks go beyond the ministries, to undermine President Goodluck Jonathan himself.

Before President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Princess Stella Oduah as the Minister of Aviation, the aviation sector had sunk completely. Prior to her appointment, the state of Nigerian airports was described by the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku as ‘poultry sheds’. Aviation stakeholders had been forced into a dangerous relationship of inertia kept in check by a complex and interwoven network of corruption. Three decades of decadence had created an array of benefactors such as the cabals of the oil sector leading to a neglect of its core mandate to the people. Airplanes had become as a writer described ‘Molues in the sky’.

Those who understand the pains that have been taken to make our airports what they are today will surely understand that it would take more than a N225million scam to end the transformation agenda. Actions to sweep aside such great achievement as carried out by the Aviation Minister in such a short while, achievements which earned recommendations from ordinary air-travellers to the Senate Committee on Aviation of a job well done simply hints at nothing else but downplaying the office of the President and its commitment to transformation.

It is therefore of no surprise that the call for Stella Oduah’s head is in line with the dictates of the Abubakar Baraje-led faction of the PDP, who had earlier also demanded for the sack of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Finance Minister; and Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Petroleum Minister.

The achievements so far accomplished by the Aviation Ministry guided and firmly supported by President Goodluck Jonathan has been ground breaking.  Beginning with a Bilateral Air Service Agreement, followed by a simultaneous reconstruction and re-modelling of 22 airports (passengers/Hajj/Pilgrims camps) and crowned with issue of NCAP, the pace had been established from the onset as one which was set to terrify corrupt bureaucratic systems.

Clearly this wave of attacks like a hydra with many heads is among the several attempts to undermine efforts by the President Jonathan Administration. These attacks come in several forms; first as direct attacks towards the ministry of Aviation and the person of Princess Stella Oduah by blames for air mishaps, Aviation Union strike actions, and the Rotimi Amaechi saga, and secondly directs attacks at the presidents transformation agenda through the machinations of insecurity, the organs of corruption, acts of insubordination, springing of political parties and political factions, action groups, ASUU and a long list of unions, groups and cabals who endure because their very existence benefits some state elites who face no significant incentive toward capacity-building, good governance, or development.

It is clear in the face of all these that the cries which echo are not those of the needy masses, not those of a people clamouring for positive change, not the voice of reason and truth, but that of conspiracy, of confusion and intent to throw the country into chaos. The attack on the aviation ministry is one of such false cries that must not be given ear. The opponents of transformation should not be granted such audience.

‘We are not angry with the Aviation Minister’

Habiba Mahmoud

One has only to look at a matter independently, broadly, and un-influenced by common-place ideas and truth will look back at him. Such is the approach to be adopted in the recent outcry over vehicles supposedly purchased by the Aviation Ministry; one has to even set-aside fundamental truths that the Aviation Ministry comfortably maintains the well-deserved position of Transformation Ambassadors in the on-going administration.

It is no longer a surprise when Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah gets above her share of well-deserved media attention. Of course this is expected as her achievement in the past and on-going as well isn’t news anymore. What is slightly new however is the approach ‘economic detractors’ have adopted, in what can be religiously referred to as, ‘a shameless and tenacious persistence to do harm to one already anointed.’

What else could be truer than that? The purchase orders for the said bullet proof BMW’s did not bear the Ministers name, neither did the bank papers. The cars were not parked in the Aviation Ministers residence, or in the parking lot allocated to her at the ministry. There is no official document that links the Aviation Minister directly to the purchase from either First Bank, or Coscharis Motors or any of the fine public serving institutions these allegations has sought to ridicule. To go a bit further, even if there was, wouldn’t that simply be suspicious? Isn’t it even remotely possible that the said figures were self-generated?

The reckless series of self-serving actions to capitalize on the sentiments in millions, of people already betrayed through spreading half-truths and quarter-lies will surely come to end.

The attempts of recent development detractors, some under the false guise of ‘experts’ to mindlessly feed off the negative emotions innocent Nigerians already marred by a series of failed administrations by putting a knife on our differences in cultures, ethnicity, religion, world views and ways of life will also come to an end.

They will come to know that Nigerians have grown weary at believing in change from the lips of those once granted the opportunity and failed to even point at the ‘promise land’, talk more of reaching it.

Although what gives strength to these false figure blabbers is that they understand that we as a people have become disarrayed at the actions of previous administrations and that our common problem has become an inability to see the problem as it is. That we fail to act when it becomes necessary, fail to recognize, pin point and identify our common enemies (they), masquerading in various forms. So they constantly attempt to shape-shift and deceive us each time. What else can make activists out of former ministers, or deliver righteousness to one who isn’t even God-fearing.

It is of no surprise therefore that the capacity of the Aviation Minister to do so much in so little time, has gained her so many social ‘distractions’. It is simply the mutual worry that some interests are no longer being represented and the actions now set in motion is one that will redefine the political machinery. 

In truth, we are no longer angry at the figures we see, or the names we hear or the actions that have been taken by those in office. We are no longer angry at being neglected, at being forgotten, at automatically being un-important, or left out of the political machinery. In less than a week, it will be a miracle if a larger amount of mis-appropriated funds does not cloud the loudly talked about vehicles.

We are not angry at Princess Stella Oduah, how can we be? She is a model of all the things we haven’t had in a long while, a physical manifestation of the power of the ‘Nigerian Woman’, an enigma to the aviation industry and the Nigerian government, an idea of consistent and creative development, an ideal that our current state of affairs forces us to seek and violently oppose.

We are not angry at the Aviation Minister. We may be angry at our legislators, at our governors and local government chairpersons, but surely not at an ‘angel of good tidings’’.

Or perhaps we really are angry that we have been left in such a deplorable state that we can no longer recognize truth from lies. That the organs we depended on to deliver to us the gains of a democratically elected government, as well as manage our God given natural and human resources failed us to such an extent that we can no longer distinctly separate successes from failures, or technocrats from criminals. No, I doubt that.

One simply has to forget that the aviation industry is the most vibrant, committed and dedicated sector to the national transformation philosophy of the Goodluck Jonathan Administration. One simply has to forget the shiny new airport terminals spread from the North to the East, or the marvellous roadmap put in place to welcome foreign investors from far and wide to Nigeria.

To put quite simply, one has to forget the Super Eagles flying back home safely, clutching victory in their hands after an odyssey of failed attempts. We are not angry at the Aviation Minister.