The chairman chief executive officer of Air Peace Airlines and the vice president of AON, Allen Onyema, has lamented about the bad treatment of Nigerian Airlines by foreign countries in contravention of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement.
According to Onyema, the bad treatment of Nigerian airlines abroad violates safety.
“If you take off the rule of aviation, if you take off now, once you lift up for just 2 minutes if that plane comes to land, “ Onyema said of the bad treatment of Nigerian airlines abroad while speaking at the national assembly.
Onyema, during an interaction session with the speaker, Rt Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and other stakeholders said patriotism in him could not allow him to keep quiet on the bad treatment of Nigerian airlines abroad.
“There are so many issues raised here sir, I want everybody in this place to understand that the Nigeria airlines (the indigenous Nigeria airlines) are not against foreign airlines repatriating their money,we are not against that.
“But we feel so sad that some Nigeria and some international airlines are using certain narratives that tend to rubbish our government and the people of Nigeria and that’s unacceptable.
“He who goes to equity must go with clean hands, a situation where by people went on television sponsored some agencies to go and blackmail the government of Nigeria that they have failed, because funds were trapped, it’s unacceptable.
“There are so many countries in the world, like I said who so ever wants to go to equity must go to equity with clean hands, when they say these issue of trying to prevent Nigeria airlines from doing what they are doing here , that it just started now, it didn’t started now!
“Let’s take our mind back to the COVID time, The Covid Evacuation and when they said it is because of trapped funds that’s why the tickets are down, the disparity is so huge. I disagree, I beg to disagree, during the evacuation, fuel was not this much, we struggled, Air Peace struggled to help its own citizens to get a landing permit into Israel.
“Our tickets were sold out within 2 hours for 364 sitter aircraft with our triple sale, why Because Air Peace understood the plight of Nigerians and gave a fair of N400,000, why did another airline coming from there, taking about 2,000 pounds from Nigerians to do that, within to and Fro more than 600$ from Nigerian, tickets were sold within 2 hours.
“We went there to discourage us, they sent dogs after our aircrafts, sniffing our aircrafts, sniffing our pilot, and everybody, at the end of the day stopped air peace from doing its work around its aircraft. Funds or seize the funds, the Central Bank has asked them they can use the one in the window, just like I,” Onyema said.
Speaking further, Noyema said, “Nigeria airlines, are they seizing our money, no! We are going through the I and E window, we do even the forward thing she was talking about. Yes, at times they say 90 days or 60 days, sometimes you may not get it, but the government cannot kill itself, cannot give what it doesn’t have.
“If the government had the money, the foreign airlines would have been paid, and again sir, what we should be thinking about now is solution to these issues, we should stop blackmailing Nigeria, how do we solve this problem, number 1- You knew quite well that your funds will be trapped in Nigeria or blocked in Nigeria and that would happen and you will not be able to get this money, and you’re increasing your frequency every day to the detriment of the local airlines, you are increasing your frequency knowing very well you inviting to yourselves certain situations, what we are saying allow the Nigerians also access your country, contribute to their nation. Nigeria is fair to me.
“I don’t care even after speaking today, I might face another problem tomorrow both on the international level and national level, I don’t care, I’m ready to go down for my country, so let us begin.
