By Chinelo Obogo
Azman Air has denied writing a protest letter to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), in which the Director General, Captain Musa Nuhu was accused of unprofessionalism and extortion.
Reacting to a protest letter reportedly issued by the airline and addressed to the NCAA after their operations were suspended,
the accountable manager of the airline, Muhammad Abdulmunaf, said in a statement on Sunday, March 21, that the said letter didn’t emanate from them and is a ‘deliberate falsehood targeted at discrediting the the DG and the airline.’
The NCAA had last week announced the suspension of Azman Air’s operations citing safety concerns after the airline suffered three serious incidents in six weeks. Following the announcement, a protest letter reportedly emanating from the airline, accused the NCAA DG of unprofessionalism and being too hasty in taking the decision and
The NCAA then responded defending their decision and addressing allegations that the DG had benefited financially from the airline.
However, Abdulmunaf said there is no iota of truth in the reports as the letter didn’t emanate from the airline.
“We wish to state categorically that the recent publication making the rounds in the media in which an attack purported to be masterminded by Azman Air in reaction to NCAA’s suspension of its operations was launched on the integrity of the NCAA DG, Captain Musa Nuhu never came from Azman Air.
” We had our request for expatriate pilots turned down but this has nothing to do with the integrity of the DG as a person as other airlines were so treated, hence we have decided to conduct an internal investigation to find out the source of the letter.
“How could we allege extortion against the DG for requesting that we pay for an advert featuring Azman Air in an ICAO magazine when the said payment wasn’t for him but for the publishers? That we didn’t pay as and when due wasn’t a sign of refusal to pay but an innocent oversight on our part.
“How could we have alleged any wrong doing against the DG for carrying out his duties? It is within his core mandate to take the decision he took suspending the operations of our 737s and we are not unaware of the very high premium the agency under him places on safety.
“We are leaving no stone unturned in our resolve to fish out the authors of this falsehood calculated to damage our rating. We wish to state that that Azman Air is willing to corporate fully with its investigations of our operations as safety is our watchword,” Abdulmunaf said.
