The federal government will soon establish an aerospace university to meet the challenges of the skilled and specialized workforce in the country’s aviation sector.
Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika made this known during the weekly ministerial press briefing organized by the Presidential Communication Team led by the President’s spokesperson, Mr. Femi Adesina, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Sirika explained that the university will be world class and will collaborate with famous institutions.
“Believe me, only civil aviation can support our economy. Ethiopia is half of Nigeria, it has 85 million inhabitants and their main source of income and economy is Ethiopian Airlines.
“So civil aviation alone can actually run an economy, it depends on how you do it.
“But we have seen that we are not producing anything from civil aviation and all the aviation companies in the country continue to collapse and that has made the problem worse. We attribute this to the lack of management capacity.
“We are therefore going to create the institution in partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), other friendly countries and certain universities around the world.
“So it will be a world class university and a small team is working on it now. We have submitted our concept notes to the Nigerien Universities Commission and we are attending.
“I think this university will see the light of day very soon, before the end of the year. The CTF minister gave us the land. These will be studies half online and half in real time.
He expressed optimism that the university, once operational, would stimulate activities and produce the necessary workforce in the aviation sector.
“We started this journey in civil aviation with countries like Brazil.
“We started ours in Zaria in 1963, with a partnership between the Nigerian government and UNDP and since then until now we don’t even produce rivets as a nation, but the Brazil we started with. now produces all kinds of airplanes.
“So we think that we should have a university to deepen research and development and create these opportunities within our sector and train these young men and women with good brains to embark on the adventure of aerospace. and aviation, ”he said.
Regarding the proposed national carrier for the country, the minister revealed that the carrier will come on board in 2022.
He said: “Nigerians need to be confident that we will be able to provide a very robust carrier that will suit the size of our economy and we are on the right track.
“We are almost beyond the development stage of the project, we have completed the development of the business case (OBC), we have obtained a certificate of compliance from the Commission for the Regulation of Infrastructure Concessions (ICRC) and we plan to take the OBC back to the Federal Executive Council perhaps by next Wednesday.
“We’re on our way. As for the timeline, we will have this airline in 2022 by the grace of God and we will start with the domestic and move to the international.
“We are discussing and we will get the best deal for Nigeria and Nigerians because of course the market is there,” he said.
According to the Minister, everything is being done to make air transport more affordable for citizens, by improving equipment and services.
“Nigeria is a country of over 200 million people who are very mobile. So what we are doing is first and foremost to develop the infrastructure that will make civil aviation work.
“And once that is done, it will increase the availability of the service and because there is more supply, it will help bring down the price,” he said.
He said all of the achievements he listed were contained in an elaborated roadmap for the aviation sector, which had since been endorsed by President Muhammadu Buhari. (NAN)
