Interview: I Don’t Have To Be President To Promote Development In Nigeria –Air Peace Boss, Onyema
Barr. Allen Onyema, the Chairman, Air Peace, in this interview with the Editorial Team of Daily Independent in his office, recently, spoke about the controversies with Aminu Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano, the return of the airline to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the multiple designations approved for foreign carriers by the Federal Government among others. Excerpts:
Mr. Isa Bayero, the cousin to Aminu Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano has issued you three days to apologise to the emir and his entourage after the missed flight debacle, will you apologise?
I don’t want to be used to heat up the polity; I don’t want Air Peace to be a source of rancour in the country. Air Peace has always been known as an airline that was born out of peace. I have been a very peaceful person and I have been pursuing tenets of peace all my life and I have been pursuing peace and unity of this country selflessly right from my teenage years.
So, I cannot allow myself to be used or to be involved in anything that will tear the country apart. And the Emir of Kano I know is a peace-loving man. I have always known him as a prince when the late father was still alive. I have paid homage to the father several times. He may not remember me, but when I bring pictures of me and his father and him also, he will realise that I have been paying homage to his father.
I have always known him as a very quiet and unassuming person and nothing has changed. I don’t think the Emir of Kano will want to be involved in what is happening and I can tell you he is a very respectable man. We are going to meet any day soon. He’s not a troublesome person and I am sure he will like to meet me and I will also like to meet with him, too.
There is nothing at stake, we are all one Nigeria. We don’t want people to capitalise on this to start fanning the ember of disunity in the country. People should play it down, the media should play it down. The fragile peace we have in this country should not be toyed with in any way. Air Peace will not allow itself to be a source of rancour in the country.
Like I said earlier, the Emir of Kano is a peace-loving man and his ascendance to the throne has not changed him. You need to see him at the airport. He’s very unassuming. I don’t think there is any problem.
There may be misunderstandings between brothers. Isa Bayero is my brother. He was instrumental in setting up Air Peace in Kano. So, there is no problem and when the time comes, people will see that there is no problem.
POLL
How prepared are you to return to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)?
Yes, we are returning to Dubai tomorrow (last Tuesday). I cannot be a prouder Nigerian with what the Federal Government did as it concerns our flight operations into Dubai; Nigerians of all works of life and ethnicities were proud of the way the government stood behind Air Peace. The government was even ready to sacrifice the diplomatic relationship with the UAE if they didn’t do the right thing. I thank President Muhammadu Buhari for providing that kind of leadership where every Nigerian is protected no matter where you come from and no matter who you are.
President Muhammadu Buhari has also supported indigenous investments by doing so. That was very commendable and Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Aviation and the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) played tremendous parts in all these. They stood by Air Peace and let the UAE Government know that the airline is our own and you cannot deny its slot when your own airline is coming into Nigeria. The rest is history.
Nigeria has been taking the flaks and the international community stigmatises us. There is no second slavery anymore. Colonialism should be in the past. Colonialism from Europe and then from the Middle East, it can’t happen. We are proud of our government and I feel very proud of being a Nigerian. And I am very thankful to Mr. President on what he did on the saga.
How far has the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) gone at resolving the multiple entry points for foreign carriers?
AON, in our last meeting in Abuja, a few days ago, discussed the issue with our minister and I want to say here that we have a listening minister and a government. We have planned to have a meeting with our minister and we shall be communicating with him soon on this issue and others. Don’t forget, it is not the minister’s problem. It has to do with some of the state governments. Some of them want airlines to fly to their domain. So, it is not as if the Federal Government woke up and gave these multiple designations to foreign carriers. Some of these issues are caused by the State governments who want to fly from their backyard to wherever in the world, not minding the economic impact of such a tendency on the country.
If you want to give them multiple entry points, let them fly from their countries and go straight to Port Harcourt for instance and then go back to their countries from there, but what we are frowning at is the multiple designations and you allow them to fly from their base and go to different locations in Nigeria. A situation whereby they land in Lagos, and from there go to Kano, Port Harcourt and Abuja before going to their countries, that will destroy aviation in the country.
Looking at your philanthropic works, one may say you are interested in politics, are you considering this?
Everybody cannot be a president or a governor. The most important thing is what you can contribute to the development of your country in whatever position that you find yourself. From my own position as a student, I travelled to several parts of the country to help sort out problems at age 19. So, no matter the age, gender and your status in life, you can contribute to the wellbeing of your country wherever you are. If everybody contributes his or her bits, the country will be better.
Everybody doesn’t have to be the president, governor or a minister; you can even contribute more. As far as I am concerned, I have even contributed more than a governor or a minister. What I did in the Niger Delta was unprecedented. Not even the military could stop it, but I brought out my staff to think of a way of solving it without violence.
Mahatma Gandhi of India used nonviolent means to stop British rule, Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolence to stop official segregation in the United States without having to use an arm and several others like that.
What happened in the Niger Delta was that people complained of environmental degradation and the deprivation of their resources in their communities, but nobody listened to them and they believed the best way to solve it was to carry arms. And I felt if this thing could succeed in other places, I am going to train in nonviolence and they will succeed without them carrying arms again.
So, I now started searching for schools and I got the University of Rotterdam Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies in the United States and I wrote them for admission; they gave me admission. I wanted to train my staff, 22 of us, but the American embassy denied us visas. They thought we were running away. I applied two, three times, it was the same thing. So, I wrote to the school to bring their entire faculty and my persistence and perseverance made the man write and in the letter, he said ‘I would like to see this Martin Luther King of Nigeria.’ That was how he described me and I brought them here at a huge cost to train my staff and I.
It was after that training that we hit the creeks and we were now equipped on how to confront the issue. That was how we were able to handle Obubra in Cross Rivers State. We were the ones that trained the 30,000 people there. It was not easy going face to face with them. That was the only Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) camp where no gunshot was fired. I did it for this country. Other DDRs, all over the world, will be recording about 10 deaths because you have rival groups locked up in one camp and they will be killing each other and the war will continue from the camp. At Obubra, not even one soul was lost.
The day they would have killed themselves was when Soboma George was killed in Port Harcourt. There would have been fracas in the Obubra Camp, but we were able to manage it peacefully and we had over 2,000 people in the camp then.
When I went to South Africa, it was the first time that a private person would be handling that for his own country. I went there. Air Peace has created over 10,000 jobs. How many State governments have produced 1,000 jobs in the last five years? I don’t need to be a president to help my country and I don’t have any political ambition.
How do you unwind?
I don’t have a social life and that is the truth. Sometimes, I don’t even see my family for five days, yet I am in Lagos. Sometimes, I go to the airport at 5a.m and I work till evening and retire to the office to hold meetings. I play table tennis in my office here for about two hours. I play 20 games and I could play up to 40 games. I play hard and when I am through, I come back to my office and I continue to work. I don’t have a social life. But, sometimes, my children take me to the club. You know I got married very early. At times, I club with my children. That is the only way I unwind, but most times, I play table tennis.
Quote: “I don’t have a social life. But, sometimes, my children take me to the club. You know I got married very early. At times, I club with my children. That is the only way I unwind, but most times, I play table tennis.” Independent
