United Nigeria Airlines urges FG to review policies, synergize

A local carrier, United Nigeria Airlines, has urged the Federal Government to review its transportation policies to build inter-ministerial relationships to fast-track economic development.

Chairman of the airline, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo, at the ninth Annual Nigeria Transport Lecture recently, said better cooperation among the trio of Ministries of Aviation, Transportation and Works should deliver the desired integrated and effective transportation system.

United Nigeria Airline

This, he said, has become necessary because “all the frontiers of transportation in Nigeria are heavily laden with monumental challenges, requiring too much to do in order to redeem the sector.”

Okonkwo, who also acknowledged the efforts of the Transportation Minister and his counterpart at the Aviation Ministry, stated, however, that “transportation, whether by road, air or sea, share a symbiotic relationship with economic development. It follows therefore that an efficient transportation system facilitates national and regional economic development. It is also established that an efficient transportation system is one of the basic requirements for the security of any nation and, in fact, the live wire and soul of trade, commerce and industry anywhere.”

According to him, “the ongoing efforts of the government in the last few years, as championed by the Ministry of Transportation, have been very encouraging and commendable. We still believe that the ministry can enjoy a quantum leap forward if there is a deliberate cohesion and synergy between the Transportation Ministry and the Federal Ministry of Works, particularly on issues pertaining to road and highway infrastructure development. This is not to wish away the required synergy between the transportation ministry with the Air Transport Department of the Federal Ministry of Aviation.”

“It, therefore, stands to reason that we have more to do as a nation in developing a consistent principle and inbuilt sustainable security mechanism upon which to anchor the thriving efforts of government through the widening of the scope of infrastructure and upgrading of the standards of our existing infrastructural environment,” he said.

While calling on the conference to develop “a communiqué that spells out the actionable points for each actor in the transportation sector”, Okonkwo said operators and critical stakeholders in the sector “should be ready to examine ourselves on why we still have not achieved an overall equivalence with our contemporaries on the issues of development.”

He further stated that experience from the operations of United Nigeria Airlines indicates that most of the issues associated with air travel in Nigeria are policy-related.

He said: “We recognise also that the key challenges for achieving efficiency in this sector are related to human errors and weaknesses in decision making, including the unpredictability of the national policy environment.

“From what we have learned, in more than one year as operators of air transportation, I am inclined to say that deliberate government investment, policy and operating decisions regarding highways, waterways, and airports, through a concerted approach, can significantly develop transportation and improve the economy of Nigeria astronomically.”