A nonexistent airline. A tremendously audacious public scam. Bosom friends and cofounders turned bitter courtroom rivals. High-level corporate fraud. Step forward Green Africa and Nigeria Air.

The Audacity Of Fraud: The Incredible Story Of Nigeria Air

“For the services Fairfax has provided and will continue to provide, Fairfax will have one seat on the Board of Nigeria Air for 5 years and any further extension will be subject to approval by Nigeria Air’s Board.”

While the unreported runway incident in Part 1 was amputating a passenger aircraft’s front wheel at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu on Friday May 26, 2023, a different kind of farce was taking place about 433 KM northwest of Enugu at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. There, aviation stakeholders and members of the outgoing Muhammadu Buhari administration were gathered to witness the arrival of a Boeing 737-860.

5 years of big talk by outgoing Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika had yielded little more than a logo that was unveiled at the 2018 Farnborough Air Show, and a branded face cap that was immortalised in Twitter infamy when it was worn by a presidential lickspittle. Finally, this was Sirika’s moment of glory on his last working day as Aviation Minister; the day that the phrase “Nigeria Air” would stop being an internet meme.

Part1 : https://www.nairaland.com/7736260/horror-nigerian-aviation-industry-part

For additional context, the dream of a Nigerian national carrier is one that is powerful and intoxicating enough to have persisted despite the demise of Nigeria Airways, Virgin Nigeria, Air Nigeria, Nigerian Eagle Airlines and Nigeria One between 2003 and 2013. 5 years after this stubborn dream resurfaced in 2018, it was time to party in Abuja.

It wasn’t a lowkey welcome event either. The Ministry of Aviation pulled out all the stops. Official invitation letters? Check. Event access tags? Check. An event program complete with a rendition of the national anthem? Check.

There was even a water cannon salute to welcome the aircraft. For reference, such salutes in this context are given when an airline is landing at an airport for the first time. This is an important point that we will come back to later.

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Sirika was in a celebratory mood as he posted the video of the Nigeria Air plane on his Twitter handle, repeatedly thanking cosmic deities for making such a day come to pass. To all intents and purposes, Nigeria’s latest attempt at launching a national carrier to compete continentally with the likes of Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and South African Airways had finally, belatedly sparked into life following “a very long, tedious, daunting and difficult path.”

Or so he would have had everyone believe anyway.

In reality, none of what actually happened remotely resembled the way it was presented. Yes, a Boeing 737-860 emblazoned in Nigeria Air livery did arrive in Abuja, and everyone at this event got to stand around and take pictures with it. Yes, there was a water cannon salute and the guests at the event bellowed out the national anthem to their heart’s content, even as speculation began circulating about Nigeria Air ticket prices and destinations. All of that happened.

But what also happened was that as soon as the event ended and everyone went home, the aircraft quietly disappeared from Abuja and reappeared the following day at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa

The next time someone took a photograph of the aircraft was on May 31, 5 days after its “Official Unveiling” in Abuja. By this time, its “Nigeria Air” branding was nowhere to be seen, and it was flying for Ethiopian Airlines - more on them later - from Addis Ababa to Mogadishu. Here is how it looked:

The entire “Official Unveiling” of Nigeria Air turned out to be weapons-grade Fugazi.

The first clue came from the fact that the aircraft itself had a tail identifier ET-APL. ‘ET’ is the country code unique to Ethiopia under Annex 7 of the ICAO Code. In Nigeria, the country code is ‘5N’. To cut a long story short, it would be in gross violation of ICAO and NCAA regulations for any Nigerian airline, let alone a Nigerian national carrier to operate an aircraft that is not registered in Nigeria. This was clearly not a Nigerian aircraft, let alone one belonging to “Nigeria Air”.

When this was pointed out, a number of pro-government voices predictably jumped to the defense of Hadi Sirika, making noises about ownership stakes, aircraft leasing arrangements and majority shareholders.

But not even they could muster a defense when on Tuesday May 30, Nigeria Air Managing Director Dapo Olumide confirmed to a House of Representatives committee on aviation that his (now-ex) boss had chartered a 737 from Ethiopian Airlines and branded it for the purpose of a “static display” 3 days to the end of his tenure as Minister of Aviation. Sirika himself attempted some damage control with a TV appearance on June 11 where he claimed among other things, that the aviation ministry did not organise the event and that “investors” did so for marketing purposes.

Essentially, even though the aviation ministry printed and sent out official invitations and event programs; even though he put out a triumphant message hailing the arriving Boeing 737 as “the end of a very long, tedious, daunting and difficult path;” even though he had spent weeks beforehand insisting that “Nigeria Air” would have its inaugural flight before May 29, thus creating the impression that a 1-day branded charter flight was in fact the inaugural “Nigeria Air” flight - none of this was Hadi Sirika’s fault. It was just “the investors” (more on them later too)

We must at this point segue briefly into a brief examination of Hadi Abubakar Sirika, in order to understand why he would even attempt such Nwude-level public fraud. Who exactly is the man who was Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation until 3 weeks ago? What is his background and how did he get that job? Short answer - nobody really knows. The only source of any sort of historical information on him appears to be a poorly-written Wikipedia article which the - typically incurious - Nigerian media establishment has quoted verbatim and recycled for years.

It is repeatedly claimed that Sirika was once a pilot, having attended the National College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in Zaria, Kaduna, before studying at the “Petroleum Helicopters Institute”, Flight Safety International, and Delta Aeronautics, all in the USA. A quick refined search on Google shows that the “Petroleum Helicopters Institute” is mentioned only in articles about Hadi Sirika. Nowhere else on the entire internet does this “Petroleum Helicopters Institute” get a single mention

The “Petroleum Helicopters Institute” does not appear to exist.

Even more curiously, Hadi Sirika has never provided any evidence that he was ever in fact, a pilot of any note. For an African helicopter pilot in the oil and gas industry, there is really only 1 place to be in the world - Nigeria’s offshore/Niger Delta region. Where did Hadi Sirika earn his stripes as a rotary wing pilot after allegedly graduating from 4 different flight training schools in Nigeria and the USA? Was it Aero Contractors? Bristow? Caverton? None of the above?


All that is really known about him in fact, is that in 2003 - at the ripe old age of 39 - he supposedly retired from his aviation career whose existence has never been proven, and went into politics, winning the House of Representatives election for Katsina North. In 2007, he contested in the Katsina North senatorial election and won, remaining in office until 2011. In 2015, armed with the formidable qualification of being a son of president’s older sister and a graduate of 4 aviation schools - one of which appears to be fictitious - he was appointed Minister of Aviation by the famously meritocratic and not-at-all nepotistic President Muhammadu Buhari.

Now that we have established that the Minister of Aviation behind Nigeria Air is a career Fugazi who has failed his way up for the past 20 years, we can rejoin the main story. And this is where it gets interesting.

Sirika claimed during his TV appearance that Nigeria Air had moved beyond the first of 5 stages involved in obtaining an Air Operator Certificate. This directly contradicted Captain Dapo Olumide’s testimony before the House aviation committee (a testimony made under oath). Why this is important is that apart from Sirika telling yet another lie, if you think of an Air Operator certificate as a medical licence, then referring to a Stage 1 applicant as an “airline” that will “soon have its inaugural flight” would be just like referring to a 100-level fresher as a “doctor.” Here’s an explainer of the 5 stages of getting an AOC

Olusegun Obasanjo sold Nigeria Airways at guguru price to Jimoh Ibrahim who is fronting for him. Same Jimoh Ibrahim is the only SW Senator that voted for a Muslim Northerner to be the Senate President when The President, VP, and Chief Justice of the Federation are all Muslims.

Olusegun Obasanjo sold over 100 companies established by our founding fathers to himself, his criminal VP Atikulation, and to their relatives and friends.

Olusegun Obasanjo and Atikulation Abubakar sold NITEL, NEOA, NICON, Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mull, Delta Steel Rolling Mill, Osogbo Steel Rolling Mill, Eleme Petrochemical Company, Northern Nigeria Cement Company, and about 100 others at guguru prices to themselves. Yet the same Obasanjo has been calling Tinubu a thief.

If not that Olusegun Obasanjo and Atikulation Abubakar sold Nigerian Airways, Buhari and his boys will not be defrauding us with the invincible Air Nigeria.

Now here is a letter I recently got my hands on, which shows exactly who has been telling porkies between Senator Sirika the Fugazi pilot and Captain Olumide, former MD of Aero Contractors and Virgin Nigeria

WorldRichest:
Olusegun Obasanjo sold Nigeria Airways at guguru price to Jimoh Ibrahim who is fronting for him.

Olusegun Obasanjo sold over 100 companies established by our founding fathers to himself, his criminal VP Atikulation, and to their relatives and friends. Yet the same Obasanjo has been calling Tinubu a thief.

Don’t worry, it gets worse. It always gets worse.

Shortly after the charter flight stunt became a national scandal, raising chuckles in Kenya and receiving coverage in Le Monde, Sirika and Nigeria Air began receiving public shows of support from an unlikely source - an Ethiopian one
A respected figure in investment, advisory and consulting spaces, Fairfax Africa Fund Chairman Zemedeneh Negatu was the last person one would expect to stake their reputation for the sake of a Nigerian scam. Yet that is exactly what began happening as he insisted that - somehow - despite being on Stage 1 of the AOC process which takes a year at the very minimum, Nigeria Air would become a reality by the end of 2023

Meanwhile, it was also pointed out that this “airline” did not even have a website and had not recruited any staff. Shortly after this was pointed out, a hurriedly-designed Nigeria Air website clearly built off a cheap Wordpress template - with the placeholder “lorem ipsum” text still there - was unveiled to the public

A “WhoIs” query revealed something even more farcical about this entire operation. Apparently it had not occurred to Hadi Sirika and his co-conspirators that an airline tends to need a little thing called a flight booking website. It was not until May 26 - the date of the “Official Unveiling” that someone realised that the “airline” without an AOC that they wanted to unveil using a vinyl-wrapped, foreign-registered charter flight, might just so happen to need a website. Take note of the registration date and the name of the website owner

Unsurprisingly, having been caught with his pants firmly around his ankles after the wordpress template site became the butt of jokes on Nigerian social media spaces, this is what the founder of Folio Media Group had to say about Nigeria Air.

In fact when one steps back to scrutinise Nigeria Air as a Hadi Sirika project, it quickly becomes clear that the whole thing was one giant - pardon me for using this term again - Fugazi. There really was no plan. Today the prospective technical partner would be Emirates. Tomorrow it would be Ethiopian Airlines. The day after, Qatar Airways. This was clearly a man who was entirely out of his depth and promoted vastly beyond his capacity, having known nothing but reward for failure all his life

Cooldowntemper:
Unsurprisingly, having been caught with his pants firmly around his ankles after the wordpress template site became the butt of jokes on Nigerian social media spaces, this is what the founder of Folio Media Group had to say about Nigeria Air.

Obasanjo’s front again. Obasanjo sold Daily Tines Nigeria to these Yahoo brothers who are fronting for him. They are still the ones investing our looted money into another fraudulent venture

So now comes the big question.

Why on earth did Ethiopian Airlines even want anything to do with this poisoned chalice called “Nigerian national carrier” in a deal to be overseen by an incompetent no-mark with no significant career in aviation? And why would a well-travelled, widely-respected investor and alumnus of 2 of the world’s Big 4 management consultancies reduce himself to shilling this flaming ball of nonsense on the internet?

WorldRichest:


Obasanjo’s front again

What was in it for them?

Well, quite a bit as it turns out. To be more specific, there was everything in it for Ethiopian Airlines - zero material risk and a great opportunity to thoroughly plunder the internal aviation market of Africa’s most populous country with the full knowledge and acquiescence of the “retired pilot”-cum-clown heading its Aviation Ministry. Here’s how we know this:

Shortly after the May 26 “unveiling,” the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) put out a statement denouncing Sirika for going ahead with the sham event despite a subsisting court order. The statement contained the following paragraph.

“We discovered a mind-boggling and dangerous agenda to kill all indigenous airline operators and handover a monopoly to Ethiopian Airlines in a dubious and fraudulent way against the economic interest of Nigeria, hence our court action supported by strong material evidence.”

That dear reader, was no exaggeration.

The following images are taken from internal Nigeria Air documents that I got my hands on a few days ago. These documents, which include the airline’s Shareholders Agreement, the Establishment and Operations Agreement and the Management Contract, contain eye-popping clauses that would have quite literally taken every existing Nigerian airline out of the market and gift-wrapped Africa’s 2nd largest internal aviation market to a foreign entity.


Take this one for example, taken from the Establishment and Operations Agreement. Article 7.2 states that Nigeria Air would be legally registered within a Free Trade Zone for tax purposes, with such exemptions extending to the airline’s activities at all airports in Nigeria. In plain English, what this means is that Nigeria Air alone would be granted perpetual tax-free status among all airlines in Nigeria, and its tax free status would extend to everything and anything it does anywhere in Nigeria.

Just for emphasis, this clause is reiterated later

To put the true danger of this in perspective, below is a recent ticket booking for a Lagos - Port Harcourt flight using an existing local carrier. The taxes on this ticket add up to 8 percent of the total price. In a notoriously low-margin industry like aviation, using state power to build a permanent 8 percent price advantage over every other player in the field is as good as stopping the game and carrying the ball home

Article 7 in the Establishment and Operations Agreement states that Nigeria Air is entitled to advantaged status on all prime routes - domestic and international - at all available frequencies. What that means in English is that the airline must be given preferred status on the most profitable routes and awarded as many slots on those routes as are available. In other words, if Lagos-Abuja is the most profitable route in the country, this airline must be given the right to use its tax advantage from above and ‘compete’ with local operators on that route using the resources of Ethiopian Airlines (a behemoth that made $5bn last year). No one needs to be a genius to work out how that will end

In the same document, Article 11.8 states that the shareholders of Nigeria Air (i.e Ethiopian Airlines and a few private investors) must be given forex access privileges that are not given to any other airline operating in Nigeria, including behemoths like Emirates and British Airways. Whereas airlines continue to complain about having three-quarters of a billion dollars stuck in Nigeria, this clause would give Ethiopian Airlines free and unconditional access to forex for whatever reason it deems fit. In the event that any shareholder pulls out of the airline, this clause also entitles them to immediate settlement of their investment in USD. Mere mortals in Nigerian aviation may have to negotiate with the CBN to access forex for fuel, wages and maintenance, but Ethiopian Airlines would get whatever it wants from the CBN unconditionally

And then there is the shareholding issue. Sirika was famously reluctant to state exactly who the “investors” supposedly are in Nigeria Air. This excerpt from the shareholding agreement below appears to clear that up once and for all. That is, until you carefully read the highlighted portion.

Why is it so important to specify that MRS will subsequently divest just over half of its current shareholding to “a single and/or other Nigerian investors”? Who exactly are the “single and/or other Nigerian investors,” and what makes them so important that even though they are not named, their interests are already baked into the shareholders agreement of a national carrier with a built-in state capture advantage? Could they perhaps, be a Politically Exposed Person?

Say, for example, an Aviation Minister who does not want an entity directly traceable to him to appear on the cap table of a national carrier, whose birth he midwifed with ludicrous built-in anti-competitive advantages that will guarantee an aviation market monopoly in Nigeria? Could it be that an entity on the cap table is holding that person’s shares in trust, to be quietly divested to him at a conveniently unspecified later date when he is out of the public eye and nobody cares anymore?

Sometimes we have more answers than questions.

Putting aside issues of state capture and corruption, there is also the simple fact that from a Nigerian point of view, this is a bad deal, while from an Ethiopian point of view, Nigeria and the people governing it must be the biggest mugs on the planet. In Article 4.19 of the Shareholders Agreement below, the Strategic Partner (Ethiopian Airlines) is required to pay for its 49 percent shareholding in Nigeria Air, not through an equity injection or even from its earnings in the venture - but from “basic rent of aircraft leases.

What that means in plain English is that Ethiopian Airlines will own 49 percent of what is on paper, Africa’s largest internal aviation monopoly, and rather than pay for this privilege or earn it by deducting from its dividends or operating income, it is in fact Nigerians who will indirectly pay for it. It is Nigerian travellers who will pay for the aircraft leases via airfares, and it is that rent that will finance the 49 percent shareholding. Essentially funding the colonisation of our own aviation space