Looking at the Nigerian aviation industry, can we say it is growing or retarding?
We cannot say accurately that it is growing. It has retarded below the minimum accepted level, and government is doing nothing about it. When I say government, I am not referring to the present government because they are just starting.

I mean successive governments did not do anything about it. At a time, it looked like it would grow, but government policies have never been helpful to the growth of aviation in this country. I put the blame solely on government, and if this government does not do anything drastic about it, I will also blame it. They need to get it right.

The first step is putting the right people in place. When you gather a group of people whose ideas are of the 13th century to handle affairs of modern times, it becomes a problem. So government must listen to a broad spectrum of the public, when it concerns aviation.

You can never neglect the input of those who are actually running it; I mean airline operators. If you do so, it is at your own peril. Not everyone wants to go into aviation; it is not a profitable venture.

Those of us, who have decided to put our necks out to contribute, provide service that no one is ready to thank you for, even when you are putting your resources at risk, should be applauded and supported by the government, instead of what is happening now. Successive governments in Nigeria have never really supported the growth of aviation.

The last government introduced import duty waiver, which in actual fact was not waved because the customs came back with other subheadings and was getting money from airline operators. Just yesterday, my chief operating officer informed me that this government has re-introduced payment of import duties on spare parts.

That was an unfortunate decision to be taken by any government at this point in time when the cost of running airline is hitting the rooftop. We are talking about how to bail out the ailing industry, and we are now doing some other things to make it worse for the operators. So, as far as I know, because I am in the saddle, government policies are stunting the growth of aviation in this country.

Also, at every turn, government listens to those who have nothing to contribute. The problem of this country is that a lot of people give advice to government based on primordial sentiments. Government might set up a committee to advise it in good faith about what to do to move the industry forward. Then you find out that those who constitute members of the committee are those who would advise government based on their own sentiment. I cannot believe that people are still talking about national carrier in this country.

That is a ruse and unpatriotic for anybody to talk about national carrier in this day and age, and people are listening to them, and they call themselves committee members. Government must not listen to this kind of advice. The government is crying that there is no money in the kitty to run other aspects of our lives in this country, and somebody is out there talking about a national carrier that has never meant well to any economy in this world. British Airways BA) is not owned by the British government; it is a private business. So I am surprised that some people, who have the ear and eyes of government are suggesting national carrier.

When you talked about policy, what are the policies that are not favourable to the growth of aviation industry?
There are so many government policies. I can’t enumerate all of them. I keep on saying it, that government is the problem of aviation in this country. Unfortunately, the airline operators are not even coming together. People should not be afraid of the government. They should be ready to talk when things are not going well. I am not afraid of anybody. People should be able to come together and criticise unfavourable government policies that do not even mean well for those in government themselves, but they don’t know. First is the multiplicity of taxes.

It is only in this country that we do not give incentive to those who create jobs for the people. In every developed economy in the world, people like us are supported by government to do more because we are creating a lot of jobs for the populace. You are talking about unemployment, what have you done to boost employment? You are bringing in policies that are highly disincentive to investment and you expect to create jobs. Government can’t create jobs; it is the private sector that would drive job creation.

Government policies are debilitating to issues of employment generation. Government agencies in aviation are taxing the airlines heavily. Nigeria Civil Aviation (NCA) takes five percent of the total collections. Does the airline make five percent profit? No. Nigeria Airspace Management Authority (NAMA) takes their own, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), NIMEX, all manner of taxes. Even before you know it, the taxman is also knocking on your door. It is only in Nigeria that they don’t experience tax holidays for new companies, or companies that generate employment for the masses. You should be helped. You are talking about insecurity. How do you curb insecurity, when there are no jobs for the people? Air Peace was four days old into operations, when customs came to my head office and sealed off our operations, saying that we didn’t pay import duties on the purchase of one of our aircraft. Mean while, the aircraft in question was still in the United States, but the government agency came with 22 men wielding arms and sealed the entire premises off for 24 hours, disrupting the operations of a newly formed company that has given jobs from the start to over 400 Nigerians. There was evidence that we were not supposed to pay duties on the aircraft. But they now brought other subheadings. Even at that, the aircraft was not yet in Nigeria; they wanted the company to be dead on arrival. How do you explain that? It is only in this wicked country that you see that kind of economic wickedness happen. In other places, government will roll out a red carpet for you; give you a lot of financial support to go on because you are creating jobs for people. But I dare anybody to try that again.

It is very annoying. I created the airline to create jobs. I didn’t create this airline because i want to make more money. I could have left my money in the bank because the Nigerian banks were giving me double-digit interest rate. I have been doing simple banking since 2003. All my earrings were into deposits and I was making money. It was the airline that made me touch my capital. I could have been making money, by just lying down on my bed, for my children and grand children. But I told my wife in 2007 that what are we doing with all this money. Somebody told me that if I want to create jobs for people, go into aviation. One Boeing aircraft can create a job for 150 people. That was why I went into aviation, not necessarily because I want to make money. But here I am being constantly discouraged. I am so discouraged that I feel like shutting down my airline because of what I have seen in the industry. The wickedness is pervasive and at times, I just feel like closing shop and walk away.

Is the multiplicity of tax your only grouse with government?
Another government policy, which has so far failed to alleviate the sufferings of the industry, is the lack of provision or easy access for foreign exchange. Everything about the airline is computed in dollars. We don’t buy aircraft spare parts from Ladipo market. You get them abroad and you must pay. My aircraft is doing C-Check in Israel now. The aircraft is supposed to come out on Sunday. Up till this moment, we have not been able to access N500,000 through the banks to pay so that we can take our planes out of that place. It is still there, and everyday it incurs more money.

Another policy is the issue of C-Check, the major maintenance check. Our regulation says we should do it every 18 months. Manufacturers of Boeing say 4,000 hours. The way we fly in this country, you can achieve 4,000 hours in maybe two and half years, but here, every 18months, whether you use your plane or not, you have to take it abroad for C-check.

Every C-check costs about N120 and N150 million. My executive jet has done just less than one thousand landing from brand new. But because we are in Nigeria, 18 months caught up with it and it had to go to Switzerland for C-check and when we got there, they were laughing at us, saying, you people have a lot of money to spend in Nigeria, that is why you are bringing the plane before time.

We don’t have any maintenance hangar in Nigeria. It doesn’t take so much to have maintenance hanger. I am not even saying government should build maintenance hangar, but they should create enabling environment for people to come in to build maintenance hangar, not hangars for private jet operators.

A lot of people have hangars for private jet operations, and meanwhile Allen Onyema and Air Peace have applied for land space for a maintenance hangar for commercial airplanes to ensure and assure safety in this country and I was not given.

When finally they gave me, they slammed N675 million on me to get a land space for 15 years only, lease.

Even the land in Banana Island does not cost that much. I am also aware that other people paid about N18 to N20 million to get the same land. So what is happening? If we want to be one in this country, we have to start doing things that look real and the government should publish how much other hangars owners at the airport paid for their hangars.

If they publish it and they paid what they are asking me to pay now, I will shut down this airline and give it out to charity. I want to provide quality service to the Nigerian flying populace and I am not being given land space. And when I made a lot of noise about it, they wrote me and said come and take, but this is the amount you will pay.

If it were other climes, what government would have done was to give this man, who is willing to invest space. I will build and it will generate revenue for government, provide employment for people, and assure safety of our aircraft to fly the public. Do they actually mean safety when they say it? It is untidy to maintain plane on a ramp, but that is what happen at airports.

The civil service is the greatest bane of development of this country, because you cannot make application to any government agency and get your request approved on time. It will take donkey years and who knows, somebody may not like your face. The tribe where you come from plays also a role as to whether you will get anything or not. Aviation is not growing and people who advise government do so from primordial background. .

Since you are against a government-owned national carrier, how then do we go about the issue of a national carrier, how then do we go about the issue of a national carrier?
What we need are Nigerian flag carriers. Arik is already a flag carrier. All you need to do is find out where they are making mistake and support them and encourage others to come on board and become flag carriers.

In America, South West Airlines fly out of America, America Airline, Delta airline also fly out of America and they are flag carriers.

The American government does not own them, and when there was a down turn in 2008, American government pumped in some money to help them because they are employing thousands of people. Arik, with the number of planes they have is employing about four thousand Nigerians. They are my competitors, but I don’t care. I must say the truth that they should be supported. But if they had been supported and they didn’t do anything with it, then that is where the problem is.

At every point in time, government agency must do the right thing. If they don’t like an investor, they will arm twist government to deal with that particular person’s investment. That is what they do.

Apart from multiplicity of taxes, Federal Inland Revenue should stay away from airlines. Airline businesses are not profitable.

If you are ever going to break even, it will be after five or six years or even more.

What are the other challenges facing the industry?
High cost of aviation fuel. The price has gone up considerably; it has in fact tripled. About 50 per cent of your operational cost is on fuel. Every month I fall back on my savings to pay staff because I don’t want to owe anybody. If you like, carry full load, and still put some passengers on the wing of the plane, you won’t break even because purchasing power is low. We charge between N12,000 and N15,000 which is not enough to do the business. If you have an aircraft with 100 passengers and they pay N12,000 at most, you get N1.5m per flight, that same flight that has taken over N750,000 fuel apart from landing charges , staff over head, maintenance, and other charges. So where lies your gain? There are other airports that are supposed to be viable in this country. If other places are opened up beyond just Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja, business will thrive. The state governments need to do more.

In view of the fact that most of the airports in Nigeria were built by the government, what other ways can government encourage indigenous participation in aviation business?
This is a capital-intensive industry, where you put in millions to set up the structure, and you are not even certain of covering one tenth of it in the next seven years. Nobody wants to do that kind of business. So, those of us that have decided to run this business should be encouraged so that others will join and the country would be better for it. Less than one per cent of Nigerians are flying, that is not good for the business.

The government of Nigeria is chiefly the problem of aviation. For example, it is only in Nigeria that they have allowed multiple entry points for foreign airlines, against their own indigenous airlines. Because government officials will sit down and negotiate with this foreign airlines to the detriment of their own country. They should reverse that. To hell with the Bassa Arrangement because most of these countries are in it and still, they frustrate Nigerian Airlines from coming into their own countries.

No country has ever given a blanket opening for foreign airlines to come into their own country. It is only in Nigeria that Ethiopian airline will fly to Enugu, Kano, Lagos and anywhere they want to go. These airlines have muscles; their governments and banks support them. Here, we are not supported by anybody and you want these foreign operators to come and take our own little resources to their own country.