By Juliet Jacob
The Socio-Economic Right and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Buhari’s administration to immediately publish the details of ownership and date of purchase of the Boeing 737-800 series aircraft unveiled by his government or face legal action.
Africa Health Report, AHR, gathered that the outgoing minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika had on Friday evening launched the well-discussed Nigeria Air airline by taking delivery of a Boeing 737-800 ET-AL in its fleet in Abuja.
The minister while unveiling the aircraft said the infrastructure that has been missing in the general aviation dynamics of the country.
However, SERAP, on its Twitter handle on Saturday demanded for the administration to prove to Nigerians that the funds were budgeted for in the 2023 budget.
SERAP also said since President Buhari has received his asset declaration form, “we urge him to urgently complete the form, and to either voluntarily disclose the details of his assets or direct the Code of Conduct Bureau to publish the form, to set a good example for others.”
Also, a public affairs expert named David Hundeyin commented in response to the airline’s announcement on Twitter
@DavidHundeyin said: “I obtained the video below of the purported “Nigeria Air” 737-800 from a source at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital.
“As you can see when you freeze the frame, the aircraft is clearly registered to @flyethiopian with the registration number ET-APL.
“If you put that registration number into @planespotters, you can clearly see that it is an 11-year-old Boeing 737-800 belonging to @flyethiopian.
“It has also briefly appeared in the colours of @MalawianAirline (@flyethiopian owns 49% of @MalawianAirline).
“When you check @flightradar24, you can see that this aircraft is still in active @flyethiopian service, but after disappearing to Tel-Aviv for 5 days (undergoing repainting), has now resurfaced in Abuja to be fraudulently “commissioned” later today by @hadisirika.
“The questions that @hadisirika needs to answer are:
“What exactly is the nature of the ownership and technical agreement between @flyethiopian and the so-called ‘Nigeria Air’?
“Why did he spend billions of naira on this project to deliver essentially a @flyethiopian subsidiary?”
