A new national airline

MORE than a decade after liquidation of the Nigeria Airways, the healthy discourse on the possibility of a new national carrier has only underscored the significance of the quest and the need to balance best business practices with national interest.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the ministry to get a committee to review modalities for floating a viable, competitive carrier is a good statement of intent in the national interest that should be followed by a sound business management plan.

Therefore, the submission of a report on the matter the other day is a step towards the realisation of a dream but the renewed quest should not prevent all from looking back at past mistakes and charting a new path for the proposed airline with unhindered input from the private sector. Ordinarily, given the experience of Nigeria over the extinct Nigeria Airways, any so-called ‘national’ enterprise is another avenue for waste, looting and sundry brigandage. And with previous attempts at revamping Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) collapsing the way such did, what would be the assurance that the new carrier would fly? The fear, indeed, is that no evidence exists that greed, corruption and decadence which attended most of the nation’s government-owned enterprises have been adequately addressed.

Mismanagement has undoubtedly been the lot of public companies and government business which either never flourished or are looted to the bones by their managers even when they did. Many became bottomless pits for public funds, prompting their eventual commercialisation or outright privatisation.

GUARDIAN