Retired Air Pilot, Capt. Prekeme Porbeni gives reasons why indigenous airlines fail in Nigeria

The absence of a national carrier still remains a mind-boggling issue in the Nigerian aviation sector.

In those so-called good-old-days, the Nigeria Airways was the pride of the nation. With gait and pride, its green-white-green colour soared like the eagles in the sky. But due to management issues, it nose­dived and went into oblivion. Several efforts made thereafter by successive administrations to resuscitate and reclaim its old glory yielded little or no result.

In this interview, retired Captain Prekeme Ogbobou Porbeni, who flew virtually all categories of aircraft in the fleet of the Nigeria Airways in his 37 years of service to the nation, bares his mind on some of the challenges con­fronting the sector and how the present government can tackle them.

According to him, the ques­tion of why air accidents hap­pen in Nigerian is still largely shrouded in mystery, despite several investigations carried out by the Accident Investi­gation Bureau (AIB). This, combined with lack of com­mitment of private airlines to training and retraining of staff, he says, constitutes a risk factor to air safety. Ex­cerpts:

What was your experi­ence serving in the Nigeria Airways as a pilot?

It was very fulfilling. I said very fulfilling, because in our time, there was transparency in government. Those of us who were promising were encouraged. It was some­where in the middle of our careers that we noticed that our salaries were not good enough. Earlier than that, we were not all that keen on the salary.

Rather, we were happy with the job, because we were rel­atively paid enough to take care of our basic needs. We were too engrossed in our careers that we didn’t worry about salary. But as family responsibilities increased, it became necessary for us to take another look at our sala­ry. So, career-wise, it was very fulfilling. We also had a lot of training which most of the private airlines don’t do these days. Nigeria Airways spent so much training us in many ways from improved flying skills to management. In ad­dition to flying, I was also trained as a manager, logisti­cian, transport technologist, safety officer and accident investigator.

So, I had a very fulfilling ca­reer. To top it up, I was able to fly my presidents. For me, putting on that uniform, look­ing like a gentleman and fly­ing my presidents was the icing on the cake. At least, I flew five Nigerian presidents and a few foreign dignitaries as a presidential fleet pilot. I enjoyed that privilege of fly­ing my presidents. That tops my career. Wherever I go, hold it like a flag because it means I must have been good enough to be given that kind of responsibility and assign­ment. I feel fulfilled in that di­rection. The only sad part of it is that when I retired after 37 years of service to my coun­try, I wasn’t paid pension or gratuity. Even as I am sitting here with you, I have no pen­sion. This kind of ingratitude cannot be good for any nation and certainly not for a devel­oping one.

You mean Nigeria Air­ways didn’t make provision for that?

The story is a very sad one, not just for me but for all members of staff of the Ni­geria Airways. We served this nation well beyond ordinary call of duty. However, some­where along the line, the then government found it neces­sary to dissolve the Nigeria Airways. In between the process, somebody, we believe, misunderstood the word “liquidate” and so really liq­uidated the company including the humans.

Now, it’s as if we do not exist. That cannot be right. In other words, you could liquidate the company, but the people working there were civil ser­vants, because it was fully owned by the government. They should have been transferred to the mainstream civil service but that didn’t happen because of the negative mindset of the people who implemented the di­rective. One day, somebody who was already earning pension just went to the bank to draw from his pension and was told no pension because his com­pany had been dissolved.

We have been on that fight, so to say, for many years, but government seems not willing to listen. Perhaps, we have not been correctly presented to the nation’s father by those in posi­tions of authority.

Even up till now?

Yes, up till now. There was a period the liquidators came and paid us five years terminal benefits and said that was what they were directed to pay us as terminal benefits. You don’t terminate like that. Meanwhile, our counterparts in countries like Eng­land were paid 25 years as severance package because of their labour laws. We got five years only because we are Nigerians who served in their father­land. This will go down as a black spot in our history, if it’s not rectified soon.

We have lost several of our col­leagues because they couldn’t survive the shock. They never dreamt that such a thing could happen to them in their lives. You can imagine the cur­rent permanent secretaries who are making so much money per month only for somebody to just suddenly announce that the civil service has been dissolved. Some of them will die within six months.

That is a sad part of our story be­cause we were not just airline work­ers; we served the nation even in the capacity of the Air Force at a time when there was no Air Force. We did what they were supposed to do. We were a charter company for the gov­ernment. Government would just give us directive with a phone call and we dispatched. So, we served, we did what we were asked to do. We are still hoping that the present government will reverse this blemish.

Nigeria Airways was such a vi­brant company that it became the pride of everybody. At what point did it nosedive before the govern­ment felt it could no longer sustain it?

From my viewpoint, it was a com­plete misunderstanding of what the company was supposed to do. In the documentation that some of us saw as privileged information, government did not set up Nigeria Airways to make profit. It was meant to be a service at that time and we certainly served. In fact, to prove that it was a service, the same government would call us on phone and say, ‘go to so and so des­tination and bring back our athletes.’ They gave directives for which we cancelled commercial flights in order to obey the government, our owner. Under those circumstances, govern­ment was obliged to Nigeria Airways running. When there was a transition and there was the need for the airline to become commercial, government should have stopped giving such com­mands. But that was not done.

Also, they shouldn’t have dictated the air fare the company should charge because the airline had to con­sider cost of spare parts and servicing of the aircraft. That didn’t happen. So, government was more or less eating its cake and having it. As such, the company died a natural death. The period of this turmoil was the military era when chief executives were hired from outside to run the airline.

So, whatever corruption they ac­cused the airlines of was perpetrated by their appointees from the military. People who did not know how airlines were run became CEOs with their dic­tatorial attitudes. Occasionally, they would go and get a bailout from the same government but not enough to keep Nigeria Airways going. By the time they said they were fed up, they threw away the baby with the bathwa­ter. That’s where we found ourselves. It was in the process that they dis­solved human beings with the compa­ny. The mess will haunt us in future. Look at what has been happening to private airlines since. They don’t have continuity because they don’t have the kind of foundation we had and they can’t have it.

The same airlines which they thought would replace the Nigeria Airways are now going to the same government, cap-in-hand to beg for grants. If just a fraction of such grants had been given to the Nigeria Airways and restructured, we would still have a national carrier Nigerians would continue to be proud of. Here we are; penny wise, pound foolish.

Is there a way government can bring back the good old national carrier?

Yes, but we are running out of time. We are running out of time because the generation trained with the re­quired level of dedication and commit­ment is almost gone. Government can salvage things by bringing those still alive among the old dedicated guards and seek their advice and possibly give them the mandate to midwife the process. The process may run for some couple of years, but we cannot afford to let that dedication die for nothing. East African countries had their national carriers well established when they were the poorest nations. What they did which we studied was that the governments didn’t interfere in the running of their airlines.

They worked for almost 11years without changing their managements. In Nigeria Airways, every manage­ment had 18 months maximum. Gov­ernment arbitrarily brought into the industry foreigners who helped to ruin the place. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. What’s left now is for the government to salvage the situation by calling the old guards that are still available to form a think- tank and midwife the process.

The next generation does not have the kind of dedication that is neces­sary. Theirs is money, money and mon­ey. That’s why you have an accountant or economist running such organiza­tions. There are still a few of us left who can help even without holding offices. Government can work with us quietly to salvage the industry. Our na­tion has suffered enough. The aviation sector is very technical. Technocrats must drive it.

This brings us to the critical issue of safety in the aviation sector. Ni­geria has witnessed quite a num­ber of air accidents, but it appears now that we’ve been having a good ride. Is this really sustainable?

No, it’s not. In accident prevention, you are usually given a respite period during which you are expected to do your homework. You don’t wait until it starts again. And that is what we are doing. If you consider some of the accidents we have had, the Acci­dent Investigation Bureau (AIB) told us how these accidents happened, but they have not told us why they hap­pened because they don’t know. And, of course, why it happened is much more important than how it hap­pened. How it happened is just a story. If we know why it happened, then we can prevent it.

What we are doing now is that a lot of us are going to churches, mosques and Babalawos hoping God would keep us safe. Our performance indi­cators show we are still not ahead of the game. And we must be ahead of the game, if we want to ensure safety in our aviation sector. A road can be nice, but it’s not going to be nice for­ever. You have to maintain it; other­wise, if there is a pothole and you re­fuse to mend it, it may kill somebody before you wake up. Technocrats who are dedicated but are no lon­ger looking for money to feed their children are the best people government can en­gage to revive the sector.

Even in the Army, older Generals are more daring because they are no longer afraid to die. It’s the same thing in almost all industries. You do not discard your vet­erans. If you do, you are go­ing to create a disconnection. In terms of safety, this is the time to bring in people who have very little to lose to be at the helm of affairs to direct and teach the young ones.

But we are not doing that. In another few years, there could be unfavorable occur­rences. Just recently, one plane took off, had a burst tyre and came back to change it. These are things we don’t want again. I was a member of the implementation com­mittee of the NCAA and I know that some of what they are doing is not what we set them up to do. The set up was based on a very good inten­tion, but they have deviated from our agenda.

For how long will the na­tion rely on luck for safety in the aviation?

We just don’t know that we are relying on luck. Before you take off on even a road journey these days, some­body comes into the bus and says ‘Hallelujah’ and every passenger shouts, “praise the Lord” and they all start pray­ing. Why are we praying? We are praying because we are relying on luck. We are rely­ing on luck, because we don’t know the condition of the ve­hicle or even that of the driv­er. We will pray less, if we are doing the right thing.

When passengers come into the airplane, you see many of them reciting holy books. But on the planes that crashed, people also recited these books. We cannot rely on luck for too long. Good luck is good, but we must plan for it. If we fail to plan properly, we are planning to fail thor­oughly.

How do we unravel the question of why accidents happen?

Very good! This is one of the best questions. The Accidents Investigation Bureau (AIB) has its guidelines. Officially, we do not apportion blame when it comes to accident investigation. But if you were the father of all those who died in a crash and somebody gave you a report of only how the accident happened, would you be satisfied?

You may want to know why it happened. If you are not satisfied, you call the veterans available in your country and charge them to investigate why the accident happened. AIB is not supposed to report to the ministry, because the ministry may provide some of the services that may be indi­cated in the report.

Instead, AIB should report to the parliament or to the chief executive of the nation, the father of all such victims. In some cases, the chief exec­utive of the state may decide that he wants to know why the accident happened. If, for instance, a report of the inves­tigation revealed that the pilot who flew the plane had not been paid salaries for months, AIB is not likely to put that in the report.

According to the report on the investigation of a recent accident, one of the engines wasn’t working well and the co-pilot warned the captain. It was also reported that the computer gave some warning signals before it took off. Why did such a seasoned and ex­perienced captain ignore the danger signals? Even though he is no longer with us, we have a duty to find out why he did what he did. There are ways to do this. The question of why must always come in, if we want to proactively pre­vent recurrence.

What’s your assessment of the training of the cur­rent generation of pilots?

Adequate! Wherever you train, the license you use to fly airplanes in Nigeria is is­sued by one authority. That is, NCAA. If NCAA does not feel that the training is adequate, it will not give them the li­cense. Having given them the license, it means they are ad­equate. However, when that person carrying the NCAA license comes to you for em­ployment, you, as an airline, owe it as a duty to increase his standard to be higher than the basics. In the Nigeria Air­ways, we were trained and re­trained to reach the level we reached. The present airlines are not prepared to do that. They only want finished prod­ucts.

That could also be a risk factor in the industry. couldn’t it?

Everything has a risk factor in it. The NCAA should super­vise further training of these pilots to reach the required standards. For example, in some foreign countries, co-pilots do not require type rat­ings, but in Nigeria, we are required to have the same qualification as the captain to fly as co-pilots.

We as a nation should main­tain a nationally required standard. We can do it. In­stead of opening our gate to foreigners to come in, we can regulate the industry better. Most of the foreigners com­ing into the country are not the best in their countries. As a matter of fact, they are the ones who cannot get jobs in their countries. And here, we look at them as if they are the best experts in the world. Today, we have Nigerian pi­lots roaming the streets. That should not happen. In our time, it didn’t happen.

What went wrong?

Attitude! Attitude of Nige­rian entrepreneurs is wrongly skewed towards making mon­ey and promoting anything foreign. A certain percentage of profits of airlines must go into training and retraining of pilots. The NCAA regulations must reflect its noble inten­tions. Too many indigenous airlines are failing for man­ageable reasons. Hand-outs are obviously the wrong way to go. So, we must dialogue and implement the right poli­cy. We can do it.

At one point, you con­sulted for the Amnesty Pro­gramme in the training of pilots. What is your assess­ment of that programme?

I am still on it. The pro­gramme has a very noble in­tention. I keep going back to the word, ‘intention’ because when we have good intention, the problem shifts to execu­tion. I met a well- intentioned programme, thanks to the benevolence of our late Presi­dent, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The basic concept was very well intended.

When I arrived at the door­step of this programme, I met a group of young men and women who had already been enlisted for training.

After my assessment, I found some areas where we needed to improve and I made my recommendations. Some of these were accepted by my boss and we implement­ed them accordingly. Part of what I recommended was for some of them who had already been trained to go for higher training in recognition of the need for excellence.

They are now training with Lufthansa, which is one of the best training facilities in the world. Now that a new coordinator is in place, I am optimistic that this and other phases of the programme will continue and hopefully ex­panded to satisfy our national needs.

All in all, there are areas we could still improve upon. We could even use that platform to make all the states in this country develop training packages in many sectors.

What do you think needs to be done to make NCCA more efficient?

The basic thing that needs to be done is training as well as effective supervision. There is a tendency in this country that when someone is given an appointment, his training stops there. If you want any organization to be efficient, training must be giv­en topmost priority.

And that is not necessar­ily just for the lower cadre. The managers and the DGs should continue to be trained because they don’t know it all.

Even how to delegate, re­quires some training. In most cases, when they get to the office, they become compla­cent. Some CEOs don’t del­egate, they’re regularly absent from their desks for flimsy calls to answer “Ministry” etc. They need to challenge them­selves on new goals that are being set.

I also believe NCAA is un­der-staffed. NCAA also seems to be overbearing in the indus­try that it’s supposed to create a conducive atmosphere for.

There are much smaller countries that have bigger air­lines and better infrastructure in the world. Why can’t we? We are not ambitious enough.

The dedication is also not there. It’s like we don’t know that these things can be done. There are Nigerians who can do it.

Let government call them. These strategies may not re­quire appointments. There are patriots who are willing to identify with the philosophy of the present regime.

Source and credits: Sunday Sun