By Chinelo Obogo                       [email protected] 

Aviation experts like Sean Mendis were recently quoted as saying that African aviation industry has fallen victim to the old adage that if you lower expectations enough, mediocrity becomes the new standard. This view  was also expressed by the chairman of West Link Airline, Capt. Ibrahim Mshelia, who argued in this interview, that Nigeria has the most dysfunctional airports among many in Africa.

Mshelia revealed that he has operated out of Senegal, Bamako- Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea- Conakry and that in terms of functionality, Nigeria’s airports are worse off. He however laid the blame on Nigerian professionals, saying that infrastructure are good but that the moment Nigerians are put to manage it, they start to malfunction.

Civil Aviation Policy

I think the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu, did very well in pushing for a review of the Civil Aviation Act as the last one was in 2013. It’s due for review, ideally every 10 years or anytime it’s necessary. He’s done well there. He sent out that AOL to everybody to make an input. I received it and I have contributed my own quota officially with a letter to his office. I don’t know about others.

I agree with the DG that part of the problems why the government has not been able to put fingers on problems and fix them is because of we, who are the so called professionals. We have people who have presented themselves to the powers that be to give them jobs that they are experts, they are indeed experts no doubt but why is it that we still have the same problems recurring? 

I am particularly impressed the DG sent an AOL and attached the 2013 document and he did assure us that he is willing to work with us so that we bring all our problems and change it. I sat down and did my own and submitted it to the DGs office directly before I closed for the holidays. No nation builds itself. The citizens build the nation. We do have experts but why is our aviation system still the worst around here? This is because there is no good intention. Most of our people are experts but when they get into the office they become clueless. I tried to get some colleagues to see if we can come together and do a collective submission but it was taking a long time and by the end of the day I had to submit my own as an individual. In my submission which I sent to the DG, I was very specific on the age limit of aircraft. The Nigerian government has no right to place an age limit on any aircraft. We don’t manufacture and so we cannot limit. We cannot register these aircraft in our country because it’s too old, it is actually a joke. It’s laughable but we have been living with this for so long.

Nigeria’s infrastructure compared to other parts of Africa

I have operated out of Senegal, Bamako- Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea- Conakry. If you talk of functionality, I’m sad to say that Nigeria’s airports are worse off, even Conakry that is a country so small, their airport is fantastic. Nigerians are Nigeria’s problems. I used to tell people airplanes are 100% safe but the minute a pilot and an engineer touches it, it reduces to 95percent. So Nigerian infrastructure are good but the moment you put Nigerians to manage it, they start wrecking it. The problem with our airport is nothing but Nigerians. Bring Ghanaians and remove every Nigerian there, I tell you you’d like Nigerian airports. The problem is nothing but Nigerian behaviour and I detest saying this. Our airports are the worst experience you can have among all these airports mentioned and I can stand to defend it anywhere. I am not proud of that. I am angry about it because I know we can do better and in fact, we can change this trend within hours. 

Your concerns about  infrastructureshortages  and how it affects you as a pilot

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Yes, we do have shortage, we have so many airlines and infrastructure is limited and some of these limitations are imposed. How can you build an airport with all these monies and reduce operating hours, who does that? It’s only Nigeria you see that happen. You build a beautiful airport and you say it can only open from sunrise to sunset. Where is that done? Airplanes are built to fly 24 hours except adverse weather conditions.

In Nigeria today if you go anywhere go to FAA, I’m not fighting anyone but I’m just saying there are things we do that make me laugh. A pilot is trained to fly through adverse and normal weather. He knows when to do what, he knows when not to go, he is certificated by the CAA, then the government now limits the pilot’s ability especially during harmattan and say ‘ you cannot fly unless the weather is 800 metres and above’. I have been shouting about this for a long time but nobody is listening, we are trained on this. Now Nigeria has ILS Category 3 at the Lagos Airport and complemented with the AFL, we can land in zero visibility, then why are we limiting it to 800 metres? Why did we have to waste that money? Why didn’t we put that money on hospitals that we need? Or food for our people displaced in IDP Camps due to insurgency? Why did we take that money to buy Category 3 ILS that we can only use in adverse weather like this one and then you say we can fly to the ground with zero visibility but the law forbids us to do so? When the time to practice comes we are never allowed. When you train, it’s for practice but when reality comes we are never allowed.

I’ve flown in Lagos airspace for 40 years now, there is no time that you get visibility less than 400 metres. I’ve never seen 300 or 200 metres and that facility can fly you down under zero visibility. There is something fundamentally wrong.

Should weather minima rule be changed

When you are coming in and request information and the ATC gives you all you need and ends with you are below state minima, if you land, they will file a violation. No pilot wants to get slammed with a violation, it affects your employment and in fact you become a dangerous pilot. So you have to now divert somewhere else, meanwhile even category 2 ILS on 200 metres you can land but still state minima has been there since I was a young pilot. Who put that, someone in power somewhere and no one had bothered to do anything. For example, I think the Minister of Aviation has power to change that. It’s not in the Act, or the aviation policy.

The laws are there and they announce them this period because if the pilots violate them, they will punish them, they will impound your license. The law of the air says no airport can be closed to any traffic unless the runway surface is bad. Which means even if the weather is bad the pilot says I’m coming you just encourage him to come but in the Nigerian airspace today, the moment the weather is bad, you hear the controller telling you how bad it is and even begins to scare young pilots. There are so many thing wrong.

I don’t think it’s the DG that can change it. The DG is supposed to supervise FAAN, NAMA every service provider is subject to the supervision of the NCAA but I don’t think it is under his purview to change.

I put the maximum staff of NCAA at 700-1000 that they will be technical staff or experts and only 10percent would be support staff like lawyers, admin but rather than 1000 inspectors and 10percent support staff, we now have 1000 support staff and 10 per cent inspectors and they have to charge the airline to pay the workers who do not provide technical service to the airlines. The inspectors are the real people CAA needs, not the thousands sitting down doing nothing.

Enumeration

We pay 5 percent and NCAA has to share a percentage with others but if NCAA had the right set of employees, that 5 percent would have been developing NCAA rapidly. How can you employ an inspector and pay him N500, 000 or N600, 000 when his colleagues in the airline is earning N2 million? It doesn’t work. The salary should be at par. Document 8335 says that you as an inspector must have greater or equal experience to the person you are going to inspect.