Policy, strategy and the role of the human element in the safety and sustainability chain.

Industry deficient in skilled and experienced man-power due to
Neglect of training and manpower development

According to the World Bank African economic Outlook Nigeria Nigeria experienced steady GDP growth from 2010 to 2012; (average 6.5%). Yet our unemployment rate is on the increase now standing at 23.9% compared to 21.1% in 2010.  Meaning we have 33.7 million people unemployed out of a population of 162 million.  what quality of Human resource can reproduce with such a high level of illiteracy? GDP growth average of 6.5% within those 2 years we've still been able to create 4.5 million unemployed people; unbelievable!
60% of our population is expected to be below the poverty line and that is surviving on less than $1 a day.  In perspective 97.2 million people leave on approximately N4800 a  month. It shows that we still suffer very serious inequalities in the distribution of wealth leading to serious socio-economic consequences.

For the past 7 years, a major obstacle in Africa's inability to meet its safety oversight  functions is the lack of requisite competent  manpower. It is obvious that for the past few years a lot of training has taken place within both the administration and professional cadre of aviation agencies. 
However it is hoped that the NCAA will strive to retain these personnel by offering realistic prospects for secure and rewarding professional careers in Nigeria. According to the World Bank tertiary enrolment for developing Countries stands at 10% of the population compared to 56% for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries. It is evident that Africa will find it challenging to produce the number of development professionals needed to sustain economic growth in the aviation sector without a serious change in educational and labour policies.
Note that a conservative estimate from Boeing last year dictates that Africa needs to provide and additional 715 pilots and 960 aircraft engineers every year for the next 20 years to be able to man it's aviation sector planned capacity. Nigeria's' population is 18% of Africa's hence we are expected to provide the appropriate 18% of the manpower. This comes to precisely 128 additional pilots and 172 new engineers every year. Failing to meet this target means Africa will have to mitigate the shortfall by employing expatriates. These will eventually repatriated both the acquired skills and revenue  back to their home countries to the detriment of this continent.  The problem could have been eliminated if the promised academic upgrade and expansion of the Nigerian College of Aviation technology (NCAT) had been carried out as planned. I carried out a census of ICAO recognised aviation training institutions in Africa. The result showed that the United Kingdom has more ICAO recognised aviation institutions than the 54 African countries combined.


Brain drain caused by security concerns and poor psychological contracts

The current security concerns experienced in some northern parts of the country has result into movement of people  and businesses away from the perceived hot spots. The psychological contract is a series of unwritten expectations that employees expect from their employer and vice versa. The remuneration (pay) is only a tip of the iceberg when it comes to expectation. Principal among these latent expectations are security and safety, training and development, recognition for the work and efforts invested in the organisation. Most employment contracts for aviation professionals make no provision for loss of license insurance, medical cover, pension, union representation and unbiased conflict resolution processes.  The current proliferation of expatriate staff within the Nigerian aviation industry this leads to disparity of conditions and local staff disaffection. A scenario where there is no employee engagement and group synergy provides the perfect environment for the emergence of latent pathogens that will threaten the fragile state of safety the industry is trying to balance against mounting economic and financial pressures.

Lack of enabling laws to provide a safety net for professionals in safety critical organisations.

Aviation professionals in Nigeria are exposed to excessive commercial pressure without any legal protection. These happens because managers insist on meeting target OnTime performance (OTP), schedule integrity,  fraudulent dispatch reliability targets, achieve cost savings, etc. The end result is safety is compromised for economic benefits.This include pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, handling agents, ground equipment operators, etc.
Some operational safety issues reported include:

Engineers are cajoled into signing certificates of release to service (CRS) when the aircraft is obviously unserviceable.
Dispatchers encouraged to falsify weights in order to carry all commercial payload.
At traffic controllers required to work:

• without required serviceable equipment.

• overtime due to low manpower levels.

Pilots being reprimanded, unilaterally fined by their employers for:

• Safely executing go-arounds from an unstable approach.

• Writing serious defects in the aircraft technical log.

• Refusing to fly an unserviceable aircraft

• Insisting on taking the legal amount of fuel for flights.

All these because of the commercial implication of these required safety measures.

The prebendal culture and the absence of the whistle-blower protection policy

Nigeria needs to evolve a whistle-blower policy that insures protection of both the system and its users. This this will serve to reduce the spread corruption within the system. It would also help in identifying hazards and taking mitigating actions before the entire group is compromised. The absence of this feature has left our aviation system constantly being overrun by corruption. Good people within the system who observe anomalies such as unsafe practices or misuse of public funds are left with the difficult choices. Speaking out and sacrificing their careers and livelihood or keeping quiet and hoping that nothing goes wrong and nobody else finds out. The result is an unsafe system built on false security,  devoid of transparency and accountability that fosters a contagion of corruption and unethical practices.
The inherent prebendal culture leads to depletion of the much needed manpower. It is unfortunate that with every change in Administration the top level management are usually prematurely retired or fired irrespective of the competency and integrity. This unwarranted high turnover of our top professionals deprives the sector of the much-needed manpower required for capacity building. Some of management staff anticipate this cycle and begin looting the system in preparation for undignified exit.

Conclusion:
Nigeria needs a clearly defined and understood transport policy

The entire transport policy for Nigeria needs to be re-written. We need clearly defined policies and their respective strategies with specific objectives and time-lines for safety, reliability, efficiency and sustainability.
We have to be proactive and attempt to address issues at the policy and strategy level. Though the implementation level is very important, it tend is expected to be driven by the policy and strategy. Historical evidence indicate implementation is usually reactive and prone to serious adverse interference due to the absence of a clearly understood policy. The aviation policy should be part of an over-arching transport policy that integrates road, rail, sea and air travel. With a big picture view, our civil aviation policy must reflect elements of the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) continent-wide programme especially the implementation Yamoussoukro decision (1999) and the drive for regional integration.
It is quite obvious that the implementation of programmes within the sector is not supported by processes to ensure the objective is achieved; checks, balances, transparency and accountability.
A cursory look at the activities of both the regulator NCAA and the Federal Ministry of aviation in the last one year shows a sector without direction, stakeholders buy-in and synergy. A clear indicative of what transpires when a reactive regime attempts to drive a system with cogs already embedded in the wheels; slow, painful and inefficient.

Obviously most of our system managers see policy and strategy as just theoretical postulations and thus have traditionally ignored them. Emphasis is placed on the hurried acquisition of tangible assets and physical structures like airports and air planes. Myopically oblivious that without processes that will ensure sustainable levels of skilled competent man-power and supporting maintenance processes, the infrastructure and equipment will quickly translate into liabilities. The prevalence of corruption in the polity requires that transparency and accountability be clearly defined in policy and strategy. Where classified information is involved, there must still be verifiable checks and balances using a secure structures. One of such is the board of trustees of an aviation advisory council.
 For any policy and strategy to succeed, it is indispensable to obtain stake-holders buy-in and create the synergy required to effect the change.  I believe we are in a transient stage in our national development. To stagnate in its pupa stage, a butterfly larva will not survive for long. So, in the words of Maya Angelou “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

There's still time for a change, but not long!

You can hardly believe we have 2 months left for the end of 2012! What have you done with the past 10 months? Were you able live a life of quality or better still a fulfilled life?
The essence of quality in life is to be reasonably happy and at peace with God, yourself and humanity as much as possible. For the quality of life is not dependent in the abundance one possesses, but in how much happiness and peace one is able to harness from the accessible resources around us.
A fulfilled life, however is one notch up. It is life that is able to positively impact the lives of others, directly or indirectly even in an infinitesimal measure.
A fulfilled life may mean sharing your resources outside your personal needs, but the results will transcend your lifetime. We hardly remember the richest man during the Church reformation (1510-1525), but many recall Martin Luther the German monk who stood up to challenge the notion that the rich can buy forgiveness from the the Church ( indulgences) , or the non-violent campaigns of Mahatma Gandhi (1893-1947) and Martin Luther King Jnr,(1955-1968) but these icons were not wealthy (in terms of money) but they have impacted lives in ways that billions of dollars can not quantify.  Martin Luther the Monk had the conviction to confront the all-powerful Catholic church (1517) when he was just 34 years old. Mahatma Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress (1894) when he was 25 years old. Martin Luther King jnr began to lead the American civil rights movement with the Montgomery bus boycott (1955) when he was 26 years old.  Things don't change when good people do nothing. Change does not necessarily need to be violent. These are three examples among many, where people were able to engender non-violent revolutionary that have changed the world for good.

You can have quality in your present circumstances. You can positively impact others where you are. For there are people who have less resources but are happier and more peaceful than you are. People with less influence and clout are positively influencing more lives around them than you are. That means you also can do it. Dithering (indecisiveness), laziness and procrastination will steal time from you if you let them. And in this life, time is all we have that once lost is never regained. If you're reading this, you still have time! So get up and live! You can do it.

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Nigeria aviation: Facing Insolvency.

A snap shot of the commercial/ scheduled airlines in Nigeria's aviation industry, will show that Nigeria has over 16 schedule carriers with a combined fleet of less than 100 commercial jet aeroplanes. Which is rather paltry when compared to Malaysia's Air AsiaX that has just placed an order for 100 Airbus 320 jets. Malaysia also an former British colony like Nigeria, offered independence in 1957 like Nigeria and they were ready; we were not until 3 years later. We offered them palm oil seeds in a mutual transfer of skills programme with International Instituted for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in the late 70's. Now they are the worlds largest exporter of palm produce and we're not.

 
In the third week of September 2012 Central bank of Nigeria sent a circular banning financial institutions from extending further credit to Nigeria's two major carriers Arik Air and aero contractors. According to them this will prevent these two airlines from further escalating their huge debt profiles by borrowing more money. Perhaps that was a little too late as both airlines are currently burdened with unsustainable loans. This would have been averted easily if the Apex Bank had the foresight to place these airlines under administrative scrutiny as soon as it deployed tax payers money (BASA fund) to refinance bad loans in aviation sector in late 2010. As is done in the USA when organisations that are critical to it's National interest have to be protected from bankruptcy; chapter 11 protection. All the top 10 airlines in America have been shielded from imminent collapse by this facility except Southwest airlines. In the case of Nigeria, it is worth noting that over N100 billion of tax payers money had already been expended in giving all the local airlines a sort of a lifeline. For now the strategy of the CBN  and AMCON appears to be very confusing; you fund and then you stifle. Something is wrong and nobody is telling us what the game plan is. If the airlines are reckless why are they still allowed to run themselves aground with our money? It appears as a deliberate attempt to make sure that the bailout money is wasted and never recovered. Why not takeover their operations and hand them over to someone who has an idea of airline economics and airline operations.


The federal government recently approved  a $1.1 billion loan facility to be burrowed from the Chinese in order to  revamp the transport sector. That was after the  aviation minister had embarked on a road trip costing well over N250 million with initial reports indicating that investors are falling over themselves to come and invest in the Nigerian transport sector. Evidently that was not true, serious investors do not trust our politicians, policy-makers (who mostly make no policies at all)  and our lawless operating environment that makes it almost impossible to implement sensible policies; e.g. privatisation. So rather than risk their own money by investing it directly, they give us a loan; which can be both qualified and quantified and most importantly securitized by the federal government itself in either oil exports or mining rights. We may never know until we see wake up one morning and find a group of Chinese Corporations mining plutonium somewhere in the middle belt.
According to impeccable sources, this is made up of $500 million for the railway reconstruction,  $500 million for the branding and rebuilding of four major International airports and $100 million for the Galaxy backbone infrastructure. The loan is to be repaid after an moratorium of seven years, at an interest of 2.5% over a period of 20 years. Attractive though these may sound, some of us are sceptical considering antecedence of government and borrowing discipline. It brings to mind a fiasco that occurred when the Nigerian government in 1985 took out a loan of $5 billion from the The World bank bank. An appraisal of the Status of the loan in 1997 indicated that though the country had made repayments in excess $10 billion, the loan had mysteriously manage to balloon itself to $35 billion. Most of this was interest as a result of default in repayments.
Are we going to see a replay of such horrors in the clutches of the Paris club of China?

 Disappointed with the current crop of aviation entrepreneurs? leave them to suffer a slow and painful death with the attendant cascading negative effects on passengers, employees and creditors. Just license a new breed of airlines to continue the cycle of failure; after all the re-election jamboree is about to begin where our $200 million a day oil largesse will be put to good use until it runs out in 2053.

About attaining a zero accident rate.....

It's blind faith, crass arrogance, ignorance or a combination of all three, to expect a zero accident in an environment where the institutions, agencies, infrastructure and the requisite workforce to support aviation are constantly  abused and misused. Politics is placed ahead of policy, short term economics before safety. The regulator is struggling to assert it's autonomy, the airlines are grossly mismanaged and placed in perpetual unsustainable indebtedness, the technocrats dont give a toss as long as their pockets are lined, the politicians as long as they're re-elected, the business moguls as long as their spanking new private jet operations are unimpeded. A training institution (NCAT) established over 50 years ago still unable to conduct ATPL certification or commercial jet type rating training (TRTO). The industry with no in-country full service maintenance , repair and overhaul (MRO) facility for commercial operators. Safety information handling is best reactive and practical evidence of a safety culture across the industry does not exist in most organisations. (details for another time). Summary: Implausible!!!
As a starting point: The entire transport policy for Nigeria needs to be re-written. We need clearly defined policies and their respective strategies with specific objectives and time-lines for safety, reliability, efficiency and sustainability. 

The current call for a new National carrier is highly misplaced

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It is evidently clear that the Nigerian government,  politicians and bureaucrats do not have the discipline, public confidence and integrity to initiate and successfully run a national carrier. A cursory reminder of the activities in the last 10 years of the defunct national carrier Nigeria Airways ltd. (NAL) shows how dysfunctional things can get. Already the sector is suffering gross inefficiencies as a result of federal government involvement in the federal airport authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian airspace management authority (NAMA), the Nigerian meteorological agency( NIMET) and the Nigeria college of aviation technology (NCAT). The bureaucratic bottlenecks and lack of transparency existing in most of these organisations creates perpetual breeding grounds for misappropriation of public funds, abuse of office and gross mismanagement. Thereby making these service providers very inefficient, unreliable and a bedrock of corrupt practices.

Government involvement has always left the taxpayers, the travelling public and the aviation professionals worse off:

•           Nigeria Airways was liquidated with liabilities of over $320 million. However its high value assets and expansive landed properties in Nigeria and its outstations including London were auctioned for next to nothing.  The hangar, workshops, huge stocks of aircraft spares were simple handed over to for pittance. The gullible Nigerian taxpayer was made to bear the brunt of these frivolous debts. 

•           We still remember the horrific experiences of the travelling public that precedes the inglorious exit of international operators like Bellview, world Airways, and recently Air Nigeria. These range from passengers being stranded in foreign countries without a shred of consumer protection, to those being forced to pay for fuel in a bid to obtain a service they have already paid for. We don’t need to look far to prove that the consumers of aviation services are badly treated and disappointed. On the local scene operators do not even bother to explain causes or durations of flight delays or consider it's consequences on passengers with international connection. The poor on-time performance and unreliable service provided by the nations airlines adversely affects the business environment and productivity. This has now compelled serious organisations to procure private jets. Guess whose money was used to re-finance the unsustainable accumulated by Air Nigeria, Arik Air, Aero contractors, et al to the tune of over N106B? The travelling and non- travelling Nigerian public. And who suffered the most with the bankrupting of Air Nigeria and the disruption of Arik's operations over the last few days? The same unprotected travelling and non-travelling Nigerian public. So much for the NCAA and consumer protection.

•           The abhorrent working conditions and the short life expectancy of Nigeria's airlines leaves aviation professionals frustrated and vulnerable. The constant gaps in employment lead to erosion of skills and self-confidence. Such instability places many professionals in a quandary not knowing whether to go for retraining or to change careers altogether. Staff of Nigeria Airways, Bellview, Air Nigeria and a host of other extinct airlines are still waiting for their salaries and remuneration. 

 Considering these and other factors it would be retrogressive and disastrous for the industry and the national economy as whole if the idea of a national carrier funded by the government is revisited. For example, starting a new National carrier require huge investments in the region of $300 million. Some say, the private and public sector should jointly own it. We know that the industry is capital intensive to start and sustain with margins between 3 to 5%. Nigeria’s average rate of inflation in the last five years has been in the region of 10%. So hypothetically speaking, if the public invests $300 million in the new carrier and after a short gestation period of three years starts making profits of 10%. When corrected for inflation the net ROI is zero; showing the idea does not even make business sense. The problem will expectedly, be further compounded by the prebendal nature of Governments' involvement in business. Some affluent kleptomaniacs amongst us will subsequently hijack the National carrier and arm-twist the government into giving it unsustainable and unrealistic privileges/concessions as in the case of the erstwhile Virgin Nigeria. The amount of money required to start a new National carrier is nearly enough to render all our current airlines debt-free.  Of course it'll be preposterous for the federal government albeit the taxpayer to continuously tolerate the misdemeanours of the current airlines. I’m not advocating for the federal government to write off the debts of the airlines currently in operation. Rather they should be restructured to run efficiently with sound business models and financial discipline. This will give them a fighting chance of surviving in this very competitive industry.