This write-up requires a historical excursion. The exercise will take us to the years 2005 and 2006, which were a particularly dark period for aviation in Nigeria. It was a season of air mishaps. The aircraft was dropping off from the Nigerian skies. Precious lives were lost. Properties and a huge amount of money were also lost to those accidents. The most painful of them was the Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145 plane crash on December 10, 2005, at the Port Harcourt International Airport that claimed the lives of generations of Abuja-based Loyola Jesuit Catholic school students. 60 of them perished in that mishap.
One of the actions from within and outside of the regulatory Authority that led to those accidents includes political interference in the oversight mandate and in other activities of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. By this time, the Authority was considered too powerful and needed to have its powers and influence whittled down. As if that was not enough, some influential stakeholders team up against the then Director of Airworthiness Standards and got the director out of the way. The offence is the strict enforcement of compliance with safety regulations. Of course, the affected director sought redress in the law court and was on the way to victory when an out-of-court settlement was sought and reached.
