After three years and four months in office, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa got the boot yesterday.

He was suspended from office indefinitely by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who also ordered a probe into his activities in office.

Bawa was promptly arrested and detained last night by the Department of State Services (DSS), whose spokesman Dr Peter Afunanya said: “Bawa arrived a few hours ago. The invitation relates to some investigative activities concerning him.”

The presidential directive on Bawa came from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) Senator George Akume through a circular by Director of Information Willie Bassey.

It said the President’s action followed allegations levelled against him.

He has been directed to hand affairs of the Commission over to the Director of Operations.

He said: “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved the indefinite suspension from office of Mr. AbdulRasheed Bawa, as the Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to allow for proper investigation into his conduct while in office.

“This follows weighty allegations of abuse of office levelled against him.

“Mr Bawa has been directed to immediately handover the affairs of his office to the Director, Operations in the Commission, who will oversee the affairs of the Office of the Chairman of the Commission pending the conclusion of the investigation”.

Bawa’s predecessor Ibrahim Magu was controversially removed from office.

Bawa, 43, at the time of his appointment, was the youngest to lead the anti-graft agency.

He has been attending meetings at Aso Villa with President Tinubu and other officials of government since the president’s inauguration on May 29.

In the last two weeks, he has had an engagement with former Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle, who he accused of mismanaging the state’s resources.

Matawalle fired back, describing the EFCC chair as corrupt and asking him to quit office and submit himself for investigation.

Previous chairmen of the agency are Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, Mrs Farida Waziri and Magu – all of them senior police officers.

Bawa is the first civilian to head the agency, where he worked for more than 20 years as an investigator before his appointment.

He led the team that investigated the alleged sleaze under the watch of former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke.

Bawa until his appointment, was a Deputy Chief Superintendent.

He was nominated as substantive Chairman on February 16, 2021, and was confirmed on February 24, 2021, by the National Assembly.

Bawa holds a degree in Economics from the Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto, where he also obtained a Master’s in International Affairs and Diplomacy. He is said to be studying Law currently.

Bawa recently appeared at the Ikeja High Court to testify for the EFCC in a petrol subsidy scam case.

On Monday, the President signed into law a bill establishing an education bank that will provide interest-free loans to “indigent students.” The clumsily titled bill, “An Act to Provide Easy Access to Higher Education For Nigerians Through Interest-Free Loans From Nigeria Education Bank Established in this Act with a View To Provide Education for All Nigerians and for Related Matters” has reportedly been in the works since 2016. According to presidential aides, the initiative will help “indigent students” fund educational pursuits in public institutions, be they in universities, polytechnics, or vocational training centres.

People object to student loans for many useful reasons, but this initiative does not yet look like it will ensnare the destinies of the students who take them. Whether it will be properly managed is another argument altogether. 

Where things get interesting is the income requirement. To access the loan, the student or their family must not make more than a N500, 000 income per annum. For a law that will supposedly provide “easy access to higher education…for all Nigerians,” this is a curious characterisation of who belongs to the indigent class. If a law that supports the indigent pegs the income level at <N42,000 per family monthly, then we have an interesting inkling into what the government classifies as “indigent.”

Nigeria’s poverty rate has typically been measured through dollar figures. Presently, the official and international measure of poverty rate is counted as living on less than $1.90 daily. When the National Bureau of Statistics launched the results of the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index Survey that found that 63 per cent of persons living within Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor, they did not mark their assessment of poverty through income level. They used other descriptive means. What resonates between those who calculate the average poverty rate in dollars and those who focus on qualitative means is that most Nigerians are poor and such poverty is not only about money but also access to certain facilities.

While a broad category of Nigerians will fall under the <N500, 000 mark, I still wonder at the image of the “ideal” (or un-ideal) low-income family that exists in the mind of the bill drafters and the government officials who pushed into a law. If such a family has a car, the average monthly sum they are not supposed to exceed is less than the costs of filling up the petrol tank under the new fuel pricing regime. I suppose it does not matter to the bill drafters how many people must comprise this hypothetical family, as long as they live on less than N42,000 monthly. Besides, how do they define their idea of “family” given the complexities of the Nigerian socio-cultural realities? Does “family” mean the nuclear variety or the extended one? Monogamous vs. polygamous families, which one?

In these very challenging economic times, earning even N5m annually does not take most families out of the indigent zone. Statistically, the average Nigerian spends more than 90 per cent of their income on food alone. Beyond eating, an average family in Nigeria also must buy diesel for their generator in addition to their paying for electricity, healthcare, security, education, and generally pick the slack in all areas where the government is lacking. You could earn ten times the figure used to set the mark for student loans for the “indigent” and still be impoverished. That is why it is curious that lawmakers would calibrate a loan facility meant for the indigent at N500,000 or less annually.

Even the Nigerian government that pays a N30,000 minimum wage has serially admitted that the sum gives people meager purchasing power. By setting income qualifications for student loans at N500,000 or less, the government shows how incoherently it conceives of the idea of indigence. While they accept, on the one hand, that majority of Nigerians are impoverished and their earnings cannot sustain them, their idea of indigence on the other hand is inchoate. You practically need to be destitute to apply for the loan.

Now, I quite understand that the government does not want the student loan funds abused by people who do not need them. However, tying access to the loans to such poor income earnings means the people for whom the loans are supposedly meant are exactly those who would be unable to access them.

First, in today’s Nigeria, living on N500,000 or less annually—either as an individual or as a family—means your chances of going to school and staying long there enough to aspire for tertiary or vocational education are already slimmed from the outset. It is a no-brainer that the people who live on < N42000 monthly (or <N1400 daily) are the ones least likely to go to even primary or secondary school and highly likely to drop out if they even get started at all. There are many foundational problems that one would encounter if one had to live within those means, and the promise of future loan access will not resolve any of them. Did the drafters of the bill conduct research that showed that people in the <N500,000 or less income category are in greater danger of being unable to pursue their educational pursuits than those who earn N43,000?

Second, the inflation rate in Nigeria is too high for any set sum to be reasonable beyond a few years. Why make a law about income requirements when what N500,000 was worth in January 2023 is nowhere close to either its present or future value? We do not need a soothsayer to foretell that today’s N500,000 will be a chicken feed in 2033. Those who debated the bill must be out of touch with Nigeria’s reality to assume that adjusting income requirements to a sum less than what even the least paid civil servant earns annually makes reasonable sense.

They should have left the income requirements segment open, so each family decides if they want to proceed or not. You could earn N10m annually and still need loan support because your four children happen to be in the tertiary institutions at around the same time. There is no reason to close off a major segment of Nigerians who will actually need the loan facility from accessing it. Life in Nigeria is too precarious to assume that all of us are not hovering around the indigent bracket. Realities differ, and bureaucrats need not be wading through sociological complexities to determine loan qualification. They should have let anyone wanting to take a loan do so, as long as they repay it.

Overall, restricting a facility meant for the “indigent” class to N500,000 and below shows that we are once again dealing with a general Nigerian problem of quantitative illiteracy. Nigeria has a problematic relationship with figures. We treat numbers like they are magical rather than a reasonable abstraction of reality, and that is why we tend to calibrate them inordinately. How can a country where a bag of rice costs around N40,000 bracket consider living on even a mere N42,000 monthly as anywhere outside indigence?

So, how do you intend to provide education for all Nigerians, as the newly signed law boasts, when you have a poor idea of what constitutes poverty in the country? How do you even generate the means of social uplift across all segments when you have yet to develop a reasonable idea of how much it takes to both survive and thrive within the present Nigerian socioeconomic realities? If the government fulfils its promises of increasing the minimum wage anytime soon, even the least paid worker will likely be thrown out of the income bracket that can get the loan. So, who are those indigent people for whom the education bank will be built?

The House of Representatives yesterday urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to, as a matter of urgency, implement palliative measures to mitigate the effects of fuel subsidy removal on Nigerians.

The call was sequel to a motion, titled “Urgent Need to Implement Palliative Measures to Mitigate the Effects of Fuel Subsidy Removal on Nigerians” moved at plenary by Sani Madaki.

Presenting the motion, Madaki recalled that on Monday 29 May 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his inaugural speech, announced the removal of fuel subsidy.

He noted that as a result of the subsidy removal, the official pump price of petrol skyrocketed from the initial N195 per litre to a whopping N480–N577 per litre as the prices varied in states.

“The implication of over 200 per cent price adjustment in fuel prices is that nearly all prices of goods and services have drastically increased.

“The sudden fuel subsidy removal has left millions of Nigerians terrified, thus causing untold hardship as they grapple with the challenges of meeting up with, not only the high cost of petrol but also the consequent increase in the prices of goods and services.

“In response to the resulting financial strain of the subsidy removal on public workers, some proactive state governments introduced temporary measures to alleviate the situation by reducing work days from five to three per week for state-employed workers, pending when other sustainable palliatives can be provided.

“The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress recently suspended a planned strike over the removal of fuel subsidy in the hope that the Federal Government would address its adverse effects on workers”, he said.

Madaki said the House was aware of a presidential directive to put palliative measures in place to ameliorate the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians.

“The Federal Government is yet to provide palliative measures to mitigate the impact of the subsidy removal on Federal Government workers.

“Since the removal of the subsidy, several protests have been recorded as citizens accuse the government of being insensitive to their needs.

“The need to put in place measures to protect the rights of citizens and prioritize the provision of palliatives to mitigate the challenges that have arisen from the fuel subsidy removal and ensure a more sustainable and inclusive economic framework for the benefit of Nigerians is very crucial.”

Adopting the motion, the House mandated its Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity, yet to be constituted, to ensure compliance and report back within two weeks for further legislative action.

In a related development, the House also urged the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, and Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, to complete the reconstruction of Ugwuonyeama 9th Mile Road to prevent the total collapse of the road.

It also urged the Federal Ministry of Environment and other relevant agencies to take a holistic and systematic approach in containing the gully erosion menace, particularly Ugwuonyeama 9th Mile, in Enugu North and South federal constituency of Enugu State in the South-East geo-political zone.

The call followed the presentation of a motion by Chimaobi Sam Atu.

Moving the motion, Atu noted the ravaging effect of gully erosion on the Ugwuonyeama 9th Mile Road in Enugu North and part of Udi Local Government Areas.

Atu, who also noted the strategic importance of the Ugwuonyeama 9th Mile Road to the economy of South East states in particular and the country in general, said the road could not be under-estimated as it enables traders to transport goods to markets within and to neighbouring states in the South East.

Adopting the motion, the House mandated its Committees on Environment, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, and Works, when constituted, to investigate the threat posed by gully erosion and recommend long-term solutions.

The Federal Government, on Wednesday, confirmed that other oil marketers have joined in the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, following the recent removal of subsidy on the commodity.

It revealed that about three mega oil marketers were currently expecting PMS cargoes in July, while many others had applied for licences to import the product, as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, the sole importer of the commodity, was cutting down on its PMS imports.

This came as the Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria expressed optimism that the new foreign exchange policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as revealed by Deposit Money Banks on Wednesday, could lead to a reduction in the pump price of petrol.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting with oil marketers in Abuja, on Wednesday, the Chief Executive, Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, said some newly licensed importers of petrol were expecting their cargoes in July.

The NMDPRA met with members of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria, as well as NNPCL officials.

Ahmed said, “The market is open already, we have to follow the regulations. So we have rolled out policies that are user-friendly. Some of them (marketers) have already started putting their applications in place. This is because we don’t want to create a gap.

“NNPCL is slowing down on their importation, so we have to have someone who is closing up on that gap that NNPCL is creating in order not to have a shortage in the country. But NNPCL is also monitoring the replacements that they have. We agreed that NNPCL will continue to import until such a time when we have a critical mass of other importers.

“On licences, of course, we are processing them. About two or three marketing companies came to us last week to say they have already booked cargoes to come in July. So these are some of the very interesting propositions that we have received.”

He stated that the NMDPRA was “fast-tracking the process of issuing licences to others to import petrol. Again, we are interacting everyday with NNPCL to ensure that the market is well supplied and there is no gap in importation.”

On forex, the NMDPRA boss said the market was currently deregulated, adding that “I don’t believe that we should subsidise on FX.”

Ahmed said, “Those prices that the NNPCL rolled out, which they sell now, took cognisance of the exchange rate of about N650/$. So if the naira improves, then the price will change. It can go either way.”

The National President, NOGASA, Benneth Korie, at a press briefing in Abuja, on Wednesday, told journalists that marketers were optimistic that the new foreign exchange policy of the CBN would impact petrol price positively.

“We expect the CBN to come out with its new policy on exchange rate, and if the rate is down, the price of PMS will be down on its own,” Korie said, adding that many marketers were looking forward to seeing a unified exchange rate from the apex bank.

He said, “Right now people are buying little quantities because you are not too sure; for if you go and import heavily now, and the exchange rate drops down from N450/$, you are finished.

“So everybody is watching and that is why it is important for CBN to come up with a uniform price as soon as possible.”

The NOGAS president explained that the hike in petrol price was due to the removal of subsidy on the commodity after it was announced by President Bola Tinubu during his inaugural address on May 29, 2023.

“The price you saw on the day the cost of petrol rose was because the subsidy on petrol was removed. And they (NNPCL) quickly checked how much the landing cost of petrol will be, and they came up with their prices.

“It is not as if they fixed the prices on their own. No they didn’t, rather they only brought out what they will sell. Mind you, the day they removed the subsidy, my own filling station sold petrol at N220/litre for three days before we changed the price,” he stated.

Meanwhile, commuters in Anambra State on Wednesday had a very difficult time going to their various destinations as commercial transport operators hiked transport fares by over 200 per cent as a result of fuel scarcity that hits major cities across the state.

The is just as the price of Premium Motor Spirit otherwise known as petrol sold as high as N1,500 per litre at the black market in the early hours, as motorists resorted to panic buying because most filling stations in the metropolis remained shut and not dispensing the product.

Rising from an emergency meeting, in Awka, on Wednesday, the Chairman of IPMAN, Enugu Depot, in charge of Anambra and Ebonyi states, Mr Chinedu Anyaso, urged all members to be on the alert, insisting that all petrol stations in the state would be shut down if no compensation was paid for all the petrol stations earmarked for demolition.

Anyaso said, “The state government cannot just demolish people’s property without paying compensation. Honestly, the state government must adequately pay compensation before the demolition of the filling stations.

“We cannot fight the government but we can withdraw our services to the public if the governor refuses to pay compensation before demolition of any of the filling stations. We must all stand by any of our members, it could be anybody.’’

Naira on Wednesday depreciated against the dollar at the Investors and Exporters window, exchanging N664.04 to the dollar.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the local currency droped by 40.78 per cent when compared with N471.67 it exchanged for the dollar on Tuesday.

The depreciation followed the directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to banks to remove the rate cap on the Naira at the Investors and Exporters’ Window.

The directive would allow for a free float of the nation currency against the dollar and other global currencies.

The open indicative rate stood at N473.83 to the dollar on Wednesday.

An exchange rate of N791 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded within the day’s trading before it settled at N664.04.

The Naira sold for as low as 461 to the dollar within the day’s trading.

A total of 193.33 million dollars was traded at the official Investors and Exporters window on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Prof. Ndubisi Nwokoma, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Analysis and Research, University of Lagos, said the CBN directive for a free float of the Naira was a good development.

“The CBN decision is a good development, hoping that unnecessary arbitrage (round tripping) would be eliminated from the market.

“We expect that the foreign exchange rate will trend downwards when foreign capital inflow increases, following from these.

“The negative side is that many assets or foreign sector related to Naira prices, like external debt, among others, will be adjusted upwards with some minimal effects on inflation.

“Inflationary effects may not be much, given that many economic agents had been sourcing for their foreign exchange at the parallel market before now,” he said. (NAN)

The Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja has adjourned to Thursday for lawyers representing the Independent National Electoral Commission, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, to cross-examine a statistician and forensic examiner, Samuel Oduntan, who was presented by the Peoples Democratic Party to dispute the outcome of the poll.

At the resumption of sitting on Wednesday, PDP counsel, Eyitayo Jegede SAN, told the court that he had consulted with the respondents to shift the cross-examination of his subpoenaed witness (the statistician) to Thursday, apparently so that lawyers to parties can study his report.

Mr Samuel Oduntan, when called forward, said he engaged in the inspection and statistical analysis of election forms used at the just concluded polls.

The witness asked the court to adopt his statement on oath as well as his report and appendixes.

But that was objected to by lawyers representing INEC, President Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress.

“Ruling is reserved till the day of final judgment,” the panel said while admitting the documents tendered by the statistician as Atiku’s evidence.

Based on Atiku’s lawyer’s request, the petition was further adjourned by the PEPC to Thursday for cross examination of PW21 (statistician) and for hearing.

The five-man panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani also directed the PDP to provide soft copies of the statistician’s report to the respondents and to the court.

Recall that Dr Alex Adum Ter, who served as National Coordinator of the PDP Situation room during the 2023 election, had told the PEPC on Wednesday that based on reports from statisticians engaged by the party, the 2023 presidential election was allegedly rigged.

THE WHISTLER gathered from several reports that this statistician once testified at the Osun State Election Tribunal on the behalf of Governor Ademola Adeleke.

Adeleke’s election had been nullified by the Tribunal but was subsequently restored by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

At least three members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have indicated their interest to fly the party’s ticket in the by-election that will produce the replacement of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.

Gbajabiamila who represents Surulere 1 Federal Constituency of Lagos State, was re-elected for the 6th term in the 2023 general elections.

The lawmaker tendered his resignation letter on Wednesday, on the floor of the House of Representatives, following his resumption of work as the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu.

Gbajabiamila was announced as the Chief of Staff to the President earlier this month in a statement issued by the State House Director of Information, Abiodun Oladunjoye.

A source who is familiar with the underground politicking going on in the Surulere 1 Federal Constituency, told THE WHISTLER on Wednesday, that there are about three aspirants already.

“There’re about three people contesting, including a woman,” the source told THE WHISTLER.

According to the source, one of those who is contesting under the APC is Hon. Faud Laguda. Laguda is said to be the current Chairman of APC in Surulere LGA.

THE WHISTLER also gathered that a former acting Chairman of Surulere Local Government, Agboola Dabiri; and a two-term ex-member of the state House of Assembly, Hon. Kabir Lawal is also in the race for the APC ticket.

Gbajabiamila’s resignation is in line with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. Chapter 8. Part 2. Section 306 (1) of the Constitution states: “Save as otherwise provided in this section, any person who is appointed, elected or otherwise selected to any office established by this Constitution may resign from that office by writing under his hand addressed to the authority or person by whom he was appointed, elected or selected.”

Subsection 7 states: “The notice of resignation of a member of a legislative house shall be addressed to the President of the Senate or, as the case may require, to the Speaker of the legislative house in question.”

Following his resignation, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is expected to conduct a by-election, which will be contested by all interested political parties, later in the year.

The Federal Government has stated that plans are underway to commence the student loan programme in the September/October 2023 academic year.

This was revealed by the Permanent Secretary to the Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew Adejo while speaking to journalists in Abuja on Wednesday.

He said that all necessary measures that will ensure the loans are disbursed from September/ October are being put in place, adding that the President has approved a committee made up of ministries and agencies to see that the objectives of the new law are realized.

THE WHISTLER reported when President Bola Tinubu signed the bill into law a few days ago, expressing his commitment to improving education in the nation and ensuring that talented students are not hindered by financial constraints in pursuing their dreams.

The bill, which was sponsored by the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, aims to provide interest-free loans to indigent Nigerian students.

“The bill is to make sure that every Nigerian has access to higher education through what we called the Higher Education Nigerian Bank.

“The Act as it is tells us the process, but as I speak with you today, the president has approved the committee made up of the Ministries and agencies and their meeting will be coming up 20th of June.

“The president has also directed that by September to October of this 2023/2024 academic session, he wants to see recipients of these loans. So it is a very serious march for us so between now and then we have to phantom the process for people to get the loan,” Adejo said.

The Permanent Secretary added that the FG would not engage existing banks to house the funds of the loan and that the loan would be available to students of public and private tertiary institutions.

“We are not going to use existing banks. We are going to create a new bank that will address this because we can’t use an existing bank.

“Learning from past mistakes, the bank is not going to be the type that will sit down and be collecting application loans, it will also perform normal banking functions and make sure loans are given because we had cases of loan recovery in the past.

“We don’t want to make it that only people who want to go to public schools will benefit from, private schools are paying tuition so you have to give them the opportunity.

“The loan is for you to get an education programme and get employed then you start paying back. The loan recovery does not start until you get employed,” he said.

According to Adejo, only three people have seen the Act as of June 12, President Tinubu, the current Chief of Staff, and himself.

The Department of State Services (DSS) has summoned the suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, merely hours after President Bola Tinubu suspended him from office.

Announcing his suspension earlier, Willie Bassey, Director of Information at the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), said: “Mr Bawa has been directed to immediately handover the affairs of his office to the Director, Operations in the Commission, who will oversee the affairs of the Office of the Chairman of the Commission pending the conclusion of the investigation.”

Meanwhile, according to a statement made available to THE WHISTLER by the DSS spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, the state service invited Bawa to its head office to respond to questions bordering on those allegations.

“Bawa arrived a few hours ago. The invitation relates to some investigative activities concerning him,” Afunanya said in the terse statement.

Bawa’s exact offences are yet to be disclosed, but it is believed to be related to ongoing investigations or concerns surrounding Bawa’s tenure as EFCC chairman and allegations of bribe-seeking recently levelled against him by former Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle.

President Bola Tinubu’s decision to suspend Bawa as the EFCC chairman came less than two weeks after the president suspended Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over similar allegations.

Bawa, a young and promising anti-corruption crusader, was appointed to the position in February 2021 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, with high hopes for combating corruption and economic crimes in the country.

The biting scarcity of dollars may force some airlines to shut down operation any time from now, Daily Trust can report.

Though the scarcity has always crippled airline operations, it got worse recently with many airlines finding it extremely difficult to continue operations as they are unable to source for dollars to pay for aircraft maintenance.

No fewer than 10 aircraft belonging to local operators are in different maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities abroad as they are unable to source for dollars to pay for the cost of maintenance.

Daily Trust reports that an average C-check costs $1m (about N750m at N750/$) and it could be more depending on the extent of the check to be carried out on an aircraft.

One of the operators who spoke with our correspondent yesterday said at least one or two airlines may suspend operations soon if the forex crisis did not subside.

Checks by our correspondent yesterday revealed that Azman Air had suspended most of its domestic routes as its aircraft were undergoing maintenance and they are yet to arrive owing to the scarcity of dollars.

The source said, “I can tell you many airlines are facing acute dollar shortage. We can’t access dollars to buy spare and fulfil other obligations. Airlines are currently grounding operations because we feel it is better to ground operations than to compromise safety. Safety of passengers is very paramount and this is also the advice of the regulatory authority, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).”

Our correspondent learnt that the current development may lead to further increase in air fares.

“Airlines are already paying more to get forex at the black market for spare parts and maintenance. Now that the naira has been devalued and coupled with this unified exchange rate, we only hope we would have more access to dollars but imagine paying over N700 for one dollar, it means the operation cost of airlines would go up again.”

Another operator who spoke with our correspondent stated that several requests to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for dollars could not be met.

Speaking with Daily Trust yesterday, Chief Executive Officer of Aero Contractors, Capt. Ado Sanusi stated that while airlines had been managing the scarcity, the industry has become extremely hit by the forex crisis in recent times.

“You know dollars cut across a lot of variables in aviation- the Jet A1, the spare parts, the leasing, and MRO and sometimes even payment of salaries to expat staff. So there is a lot of things that have affected the profitability of airlines in Nigeria because of this dollar.

“But we are happy with this unified dollar exchange as the banks are free to trade as we are reading. We hope that by the time this is fully implemented, it would actually assist us in getting some relief. You know we are dealing with availability and the pricing.