Can you compare the state of things at the Ministry of Aviation to when you were in office?
I won’t compare because I don’t want to give anyone a headache and I don’t want to make the work of the Minister of Aviation any more difficult than it is already. The young lady appears to be trying her best and she is full of zeal, I can see that.
I am always very reluctant to criticise or analyse anyone who is holding an office that I once held because I know how distractive that can be. I would not want to distract her. I know what it is like to be on that seat and it is not easy. The last thing you need is a former minister on your neck. If I have anything to tell her or any advice to give, there are channels that I can use and we shall meet. So, I am not going to criticise the Minister of Aviation or anything she has done.
But what I will tell you is that in my time, there were no crashes. Sadly, there have been crashes in her time and there have been crashes under every other Minister of Aviation since 2002 until today except during my time. It is as a result of sheer hard work and the grace of God. We worked hard to make sure that we saved and protected the lives of Nigerians whilst they were in the sky. A year before I came in 453 people died in five plane crashes in the space of one year. Everyone was scared to fly at that time.
Shakespeare said that ‘the good that men did is often buried with them’ and how true that is. In 2006, we came in and took drastic measures and we ensured that the crashes stopped. Three months after I left the crashes started again and they have not stopped since then. I am not referring to just large plane crashes but also helicopters and small aircraft and even military aircraft crashes which all resulted in loss of lives. We put a stop to all that. That is number one achievement. Number two; go and ask them who it was that ensured that we have the TRACON radar system that they are using now? Who was the person that resurrected that project and who was the person that put it in place? Go and ask all your Nigerian international carriers who got them the lucrative routes that they are flying today? Go and ask them and find out who introduced the legislation that ensured by law that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, became a semi-independent organisation that could more or less act independently from the Ministry of Aviation. Go and ask them who set up Accident Investigation Bureau when he was minister. Go and ask them who reformed the sector and ensured that we put in people from the private sector that were ready to do the jobs and ensure that things were done properly. Go and find out who compelled foreign carriers to abide by our rules and how we forced them to treat Nigerians with the utmost respect.
Go and find out who increased the asset base of the airlines, banned the small airfleets and flying coffins, grounded more unsafe planes than any other minister in our history and insisted on a full compliance to all the security codes and procedures. Go and find out who swore that Sosolisso and ADC would never fly again unless they pay the compensation to the families of all those that were killed in their respective crashes. Go and find out who refused to take bribes and kickbacks from the airline operators and who refused to bend the rules for anyone. Go and find out how many planes are flying today and that are plying domestic routes compared to when we were there. The number has reduced drastically. We barely have enough planes plying our skies now to meet our needs. Instead there has been a massive increase in private jets and according to Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria now has 400 private jets. Yet, I am not sure that we have up to 50 commercial jets flying our skies on the domestic routes in Nigeria and that is supposed to cater for the needs of hundreds of thousands of flying Nigerians.
When we were there, the number of commercial planes flying our local routes was much higher and we kept them safe by insisting on the highest standards. NCAA did its job very well as did NAMA, FAAN and all the other parastatals that were under me. Go and find out who helped Arik to become what it is today and who fought for its rights when it came to international travel. I am very proud of its efforts till today and I wish that we had more carriers that were as strong as it is. Go and find out who left N7.2 billion in the Aviation Intervention Fund Account and who exposed the fact that N6.5 billion had been stolen before he got there. And there is so much more.
Go and find out what is happening to Yoruba people within the aviation sector. Go and find out what is going on there before you compare anybody. I don’t like to compare but you ask me about my records and I have told you a few things about my record. Go and find out who was prosecuted simply because the cabal in the aviation sector were not happy at the fact that I put a stop to all the rubbish and nonsense.
Mine was just not about a record of beautifying the place or making the place look nice. We carried out solid massive reforms and we did a lot of very good things. And perhaps one day Nigerians will be very grateful for that. For me, my concern was safety and security and I did my job and honoured my obligation to the Nigerian people to keep them safe in the sky. I am very happy with that and I give God the glory for it.
How do you now feel being tried for corruption?
Those charges are a joke and are politically motivated. Worst of all, they are deeply malicious and designed to intimidate me, silence me and keep me out of circulation. Yet they have failed woefully. The charges have nothing to do with the N19.5 billion Aviation Intervention Fund. Absolutely nothing. They cleared me on that in 2008 after locking me up for 10 days and charging me to court without doing any investigation. After they realised that they made a mistake and that they had arrested and charged the man that had exposed the crime and that that crime took place before he got to that office, they quietly went back to the court, withdrew the matter and dropped all charges. I could have sued them then but I chose not to. Go and find out. The present charges which they cooked up six months later at the end of 2008 had nothing to do with the aviation sector. Worst still they have been prosecuting me for the last five years without a lawful fiat from the Attorney General’s office. The matter started at the end of 2008 and they only got a fiat from the Attorney General’s office in June 2013 after I joined the All Progressives Congress, APC. Yet all along they were lying to us that they had a fiat. It is such wickedness. They wish to ruin my life and my family but God will ruin theirs instead. I am going to sue them for every penny they have got by the time this is over. Just wait and see. Maybe you should come to court and see what is going on there, then you will know the meaning of the word persecution and what the government and the President of this country have been trying to do to me for five years.
My case has nothing to do with the Aviation Intervention Fund. There is nothing they didn’t investigate about me between 2008 and 2009 because they just wanted to mess me up simply because Umaru Yar’Adua told them to do so due to my proximity to Obasano. I am not the only one; the same thing happened to Nasir el-Rufai, Ribadu and so many other people. Similar orders were given by Yar’Adua against them. That is what governments do when they don’t like you and when you criticise them. Did I stop? No. And I won’t stop now because I have done nothing wrong.
So, there is no cause for regret for serving Nigeria and after serving Nigeria?
Why would I have any cause for regret for serving my country? Of course, I have absolutely no cause for regret. What I regret is the kind of people that came in after we left office in 2007. They are so incompetent, so insensitive and so wicked. That is the truth. This government is the most corrupt government that Nigeria has ever known.
But do you think if people like you, el-Rufai, Ribadu, and Oby Ezekwesili have been reappointed into Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration, you would have been against the government like this?
Why would I ever work with such an administration as this one or Yar’Adua’s? For goodness sake, why? Do I look like a political jobber to you that will work for just any government? You need to be inspired by your President before you will work for him and I am sorry, I never found Yar’Adua or Jonathan in the least bit inspiring. That is the truth. At my level and with my experience, I won’t just get up and work for any government or President. In any case, do you think that some of us were not approached quietly and offered the opportunity to serve over the last five years? You think they didn’t tell us that if we kept quiet and supported the government all our problems in court would disappear and they would give us this or that? We had such offers but we rejected them outright. Please, people should not measure me by their own standards. I can’t speak for anybody else but I know my own standards. If that is what I wanted to do, long time ago, I would have gone and met them and appealed to them to give me appointment or whatever. I would never criticise them, I would have said nothing bad about them and I would have kept telling lies about them, saying how wonderful they are and what a great job they have done in the hope that they will give me an appointment. However, that is not me; that is just not the way I am configured.
What do you think is likely to happen in 2015?
I don’t know what will happen, but I believe what should happen is that we should have a new government. We should have a new President by then if we want Nigeria to do well. If we don’t have a new President by then, if we have the same President that we have today and if he doesn’t change, then we will be in a lot of trouble in Nigeria. He has got two more years to change and if he doesn’t change drastically, do a new thing, build bridges, make peace with everyone and build up a serious team of competent people around him, I don’t think that he has much of a hope of winning the next election. And if he continues like this and returns in 2015, Nigeria would be finished within two years.
My worst fear is that by then the damage he would have inflicted on this nation would have been so bad that it would be irretrievable. Nigeria would eventually turn into something of a banana republic and failed state. That is what is likely to happen if Jonathan comes back in 2015 and if he is given a new mandate. This is my greatest fear for our country and that is why we must stop him. Today, we have more division in terms of religion, ethnicity and more mutual suspicion than at anytime in our history apart from during the civil war. This is what President Jonathan and his team have done to Nigeria. Everything has been ethnicised. And in the event Jonathan wins the election..
If he wins the election and it is free and fair, I will congratulate him and clap for him, why not? That is democracy; it is the will of the people that counts. Ours is to try and convince the people that he is not the right man for the job. That is what we are committed to doing. And for me, it is just politics; it is not a matter of do or die. I don’t hate Jonathan and I have nothing against him personally.
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