The interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nigeria Air, Capt. Dapo Olumide has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari is keen on the establishment of the national carrier to restore pride for the country on a global scale.
In an interview cited by BizWatch Nigeria, where he made this known, Olumide said Buhari believes that the world needs to know what Nigeria is capable of, adding that infrastructures such as the Nigeria Air could help him achieve that.
His words: “The objective of this national airline and the reason the President insisted on us having such a thing was because we need to restore pride in Nigeria within and outside the country. We need to re-instill in the minds of people that Nigeria with its population in excess of 200 million, has the capacity, and actually most people around the world say that Nigerians are the most travelled of any nationality. Therefore it behooves us as a people to provide that infrastructure for our people to have access to the other parts of the world. And that is the reason for the airline’s slogan, which is ‘Bringing Nigeria closer to the world.’ That is significant, it is not just to say it for no reason. We want to bring Nigeria to the world. We want more people to have access to Nigeria and more people from Nigeria to go out of this country.”
“The director-general (of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority) knows that there are over 80 BASAs (Bilateral Air Service Agreements) for example. Now those in the industry know what a BASA means, however, in simple layman’s terms it means permission to fly in between two countries, so to speak. And you know that with our existing infrastructure, we are not utilising these BASAs,” Olumide added.
Speaking further, Olumide revealed that Nigeria Air is a part of the roadmap Buhari conceived to improve the aviation sector.
