Aviation Unions Alert Presidency on Industry Cabals
The Air Transport Senior Staff Services Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) and the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), have alerted President Muhammadu Buhari of a cabal that is bent on truncating the progress of the aviation industry.
In an open letter to the President, they alleged plans by the ‘selfish group’ to begin plans to convince the president to merge the aviation ministry with ministry of transport.
The document signed by General secretaries of the unions, Comrades Captain Tarnongu, Olayinka Abioye and Aba Ocheme respectively advised the President to steer clear of the ‘nefarious cabals’.
Part of the letter read: “The cabal has strong interest in, and is the unseen force behind the re-emergent distractive debate about the merger or de-merger of the aviation industry with, or from, the transport Ministry. Being unable to influence Mr. President’s choice of Aviation Minister and being thoroughly afraid of President Buhari’s Mr. Integrity wind.”
They recalled that under the President Obasanjo administration the aviation industry and the transport sector were merged twice due to ill advice from the same cabal under different pseudonyms, but was reversed the minute it was discovered that the move was by far retrogressive.
“How efficient can aviation run under a Ministry of Transport, which may end up with a Minister who has to go again through tutelage on aviation itself perhaps under the cabal, as they usually find their way round an innocent non-professional Minister who must seek professional advice, then getting the advice that has a selfish agenda?”
“For us, as representatives of the most critical element in the productivity chain (the workers), we have no particular interest in the merger or de-merger argument, and we wish not to be involved with the politics of it. Our only concern is the profiteering that adversaries of orderly aviation growth seek to make from it,” the letter said.