Fani-Kayode Faults Keyamo, Defends Atiku Over Nigeria Airways Collapse

A former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has faulted his successor, Festus Keyamo, over claims that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was responsible for the N36 billion pension liabilities of the defunct Nigeria Airways.

Keyamo had on Wednesday blamed Atiku for the airline’s woes, accusing him of leaving behind the pension liabilities following its liquidation. He said President Bola Tinubu’s administration had cleared the outstanding debt.

But Fani-Kayode, who served as aviation minister under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said Nigeria Airways had been crippled by decades of corruption, mismanagement and mounting debts long before the administration came to power in 1999.

In a post on his X handle, @realFFK, on Thursday, he argued that Obasanjo inherited a collapsed national carrier and that its liquidation in 2004 was necessary to prevent further waste of public funds.

Fani-Kayode recalled that Nigeria Airways had 32 functional aircraft, competent pilots and crew, an effective management team and an accountable board when Obasanjo left office as military head of state in 1979.

“By the time Obasanjo came back to power in 1999, 20 years later, there was only one plane left and it was not functional,” he said.
“The rest had vanished together with virtually all of the company’s assets. Everything in the company had gone to the dogs.”

Rather than blame Atiku, Fani-Kayode attributed the airline’s collapse to successive management teams and boards that ran the company between 1979 and 1999, alleging that corruption and mismanagement had destroyed a once-proud national carrier.

He also rejected suggestions that Atiku alone was responsible for the decision to liquidate the airline, stressing that it was a collective decision of the Obasanjo administration.

“Whatever decision was finally taken was a collective one,” he said, adding that members of the administration shared responsibility for its consequences.

Keyamo’s criticism of Atiku appears linked to the former vice-president’s position as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) which he headed during the Obasanjo administration.