although, the exceptional aide (Media) to the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Joe Obi, who verified the development on Wednesday, said the vehicles were bought to protect the minister from some external threats.
He said in a phone dialogue with hit correspondent:
Yes, it is true that some security vehicles were procured for the use of the office of the honourable minister in response to the clear and imminent risk to her individual security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the part.
When she came on board as the minister, she inherited a allotment of luggage in periods of the concession and lease agreements in the part, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria.
And so, she took bold steps and some of these agreements were reconsidered and some were terminated, and these moves disturbed some entrenched interests in the part, and inside this period, she started to receive some imminent threats to her life; therefore, the need for the vehicles.
It should be noted that these vehicles are not individual vehicles and were not procured in the title of the honourable minister; they are utility vehicles and are for the office of the minister, and if she leaves the office, she will not be taking the vehicles along with her.”
On his part, the spokesperson for the NCAA, Mr. Fan Ndubuike, feigned ignorance of the development. He notified hit correspondent at 8.05pm on Wednesday.
“I am not cognizant of anything like that,”
The NCAA is the agency ascribed with double-checking the airworthiness of financial planes soaring within the country’s airspace.
The bureau has been under blaze recently over a sequence of mishaps and near smashes involving planes being operated by household airlines that were certified fit for flight procedures by the NCAA.
There have also been gossip that the NCAA does not have enough capital to upgrade its
equipment, drive its workers for critical teaching and charter sufficient qualified hands, while inquiries are also being increased by commerce watchers on the ability of the cash-strapped bureau to procure such expensive vehicles.
although, the Director-General, NCAA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, had on Monday rejected the assertions of being cash-strapped, saying that the agency was buoyant.
He said:
“We are not smashed, we have been bearing out all our responsibilities and have been undertaking the teaching of our employees as and when due.
I can notify you that right now, some of our staff members are undergoing training overseas and we still have other ones that are waiting for acceptance; we do not joke with training here and I challenge anyone to come up with anything otherwise to that effect.”
meantime, two foremost air crashes have occurred under Oduah’s watch