The Politics of Buying Official Aircraft

Abdullahi Usman

“ We have to be able to criticize what we love, to say what we have to say, ‘cause if you’re not trying to make something better, then as far as I can tell, you’re just in the way.”-- Ani Difranco

It appears that the current fad amongst their Excellencies, the governors, especially those in parts of the North West geopolitical zone, is the urge to buy an official aircraft of their own. To be fair to these governors though, this obsession was not started by them but rather by one of their colleagues from the North East, Governor Jolly Nyame of Taraba State. However, no sooner had Taraba State finished buying its own jet than the states of Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara decided to jump into the bandwagon without even as much as caring to allow a reasonable time frame to determine whether the ‘Taraba experiment’ would work or not.

The three state governments, which incidentally happen to be controlled by the same political party, have each been reported to be concluding arrangements to purchase their own individual aircraft with seating capacities ranging from 14 to 18 seats. Nobody is implying that state governments have no right to decide just where and how to expend their own resources but the purchase of official jets by states which even their respective Chief Executives have acknowledged as belonging to the league of the least developed in the country can hardly pass as a wise decision. At a time when each of the three states is groaning in desperate search for investment in human capital development through the health and educational sectors; investment in social amenities in the areas of roads construction, clean water and rural electricity supply; investment in agriculture, which constitutes the mainstay of their respective economies; investment in Small & Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) to serve as a spring board for the industrial take-off of their mainly agrarian and subsistence economies; it is rather curious that the same states are thinking of expending as much as between N285 million to N300 million each to fund the purchase of such luxury items as executive jets. Apart from massaging the personal egos and possibly helping in boosting the prestige of the respective Chief Executives amongst their fellow governors, one wonders what else these indefensible investments are exactly designed to achieve.

Justifying the Unjustifiable

In an attempt to justify their action against the backdrop of the huge outcry generated by this unpopular decision, some of these governments have, rather belatedly, started singing another song to the effect that they intend to follow Governor Nyame’s example to the letter by also releasing their own aircraft for charter and commercial use with a view to generating revenue for their states. This was one of the hollow arguments advanced by a Commissioner from one of the states in a BBC Hausa interview some weeks back. After listening to the Honourable(?) Commissioner’s half-hearted effort at responding to his interviewer’s request for him to justify the huge expenditure on an official jet, one was left wondering whether the official knew exactly what he was trying to achieve in that interview in the first place. This is because by the time he was through with his evidently failed attempt at defending the indefensible, he had ended up not only embarrassing his fellow indigenes from that state, but also succeeded in making a total mess of himself in the process.

Revenue Generation as a Motivator

Regarding the argument of generating revenue from the release of the aircraft by the state governments for commercial use, one is forced to ask whether the primary role the governments have set up for themselves has now been extended to cover the provision of airline services for their citizens. One only needs to take a close look in the direction of Nigeria Airways for ample proof of just how badly government, even at the federal level, has fared in the business of air transportation. Such businesses (and I insist they are viewed as such rather than as some form of social service) are better left to the private sector, which is better suited to handle them as the government deregulation of the aviation industry has clearly demonstrated. As someone rightly noted, government indeed has no business in business. It is also very unlikely that these states can generate any significant amount of revenue from the commercial use of their aircraft in view of the low level of patronage airlines flying through Sokoto, the only airport that serves as the hub for the three states, have enjoyed in the past. It is a well-known fact that some airlines like Albarka Airlines have had to drop the idea of flying that route after initial attempts proved unprofitable. In fact, Nigeria Airways, the only airline that still flies that route, goes there only twice a week (Fridays and Sundays) from Lagos (I gather they only fly on Sundays nowadays). One does not need to be an expert to know that in addition to civil servants who constitute the bulk of the passengers on these weekend flights, an airline also depends (and more importantly too) on businessmen, who tend to fly on a more frequent basis, if it must remain afloat and profitable.

The Economics of Operating Official Aircraft

In addition, it is also very doubtful if these three state governments have even cared to put the economics of owning and running their own aircraft into consideration before arriving at their final decision to go ahead with the purchase. The initial expenditure of about =N=300 million per aircraft might appear prohibitive enough for a state that is reported to be already owing workers several months arrears of salaries. That is, however, merely a tip of the iceberg as there are indeed other costs involved in running an aircraft. These include: landing fees of =N=700.00 per landing; parking fees of =N=1,500.00 per night; charges of over-flying other nations’ airspace during international flights; pilots and other crew members’ wages (Captain @ =N=370,000.00 per month, Co-pilot @ =N=280,000.00 per month and Hostess @ =N=70,000.00 per month); fueling costs (this depends on the number of flights but the cost per litre of Jet Fuel up North where the planes will be based range between =N=30.00 to =N=35.00 per litre); spare parts and other maintenance costs, amongst others. A pilot friend who flies a Dornier 228 aircraft (the type these states intend buying) estimates the average annual maintenance costs of such a plane at US$ 70,000.00 (or =N=8.12 million @ =N=116/US$). He, however, added that giving the same aircraft to Dana Airlines to operate as the three states are contemplating would shoot this cost up by between seven and ten folds to around $390,000.00 to US$700,000.00 (i.e. =N=56.84 million to =N= 81.2 million) per annum! Add all these expenses to the contract fees Dana Airlines will certainly be charging for running these aircraft and the opportunity cost of channeling the entire amount into buying and operating an aircraft as against investing it in education, for instance, and the picture begins to get even clearer. It is pertinent to state that aircraft maintenance is an area one can ill afford to toy with in the sense that whereas a badly maintained vehicle will simply gradually come to a halt and get parked by the roadside in the event of an engine failure, the implication of a faulty engine in a badly maintained aircraft is not that straight forward and the outcome of such an unfortunate development is indeed better imagined.

Politics or Investment?

A highly reliable source indicates that sixteen (16) of these Dornier 228 aircraft were imported form the US by a very influential individual with a lot of political goodwill who assigned them to Dana Airlines to sell on his behalf. A visit to Dana premises in Kaduna will confirm that these unpainted planes are presently parked there. Three of these planes have already been sold to the government of Angola, one to the Taraba State government and another one to a local company. It is from the remaining stocks that these three North Western states intend to purchase theirs. It is indeed instructive that while an informed industry source confirms that the landing cost of each of these planes will not exceed between US$ 600,000.00 to US$700,000 or at worst US$1 million (i.e. =N=116 million), Dana is offering the same planes to these hapless states at a staggering cost of around US$2.5 million or =N=290 million each!

If their Excellencies have some political debt they need to settle or are indeed planning on making a political investment with a view to reaping some political capital in the near future, they should please look for other cheaper and, more importantly, private means of achieving their objectives rather that doing so at the expense of their already impoverished citizenry.

Assemblymen as Collaborators

The ease with which the three governors seemed to have obtained the approval of their respective legislatures to go ahead with the purchase of the jets appears rather astounding and certainly calls for serious concern. Considering the level of furore generated at the National Assembly by President Obasanjo’s decision to purchase a new aircraft in the past, one would at least have expected the legislators in the three states to show more than a passing interest in the decisions of their governors by raising some of the issues highlighted above, especially in view of the fact that there are indeed other more important areas competing for the same limited resources available to these states. Whether the assemblymen in Abuja were being sincere or merely using the issue as an excuse to get at the President for whatever reason, at least it was opened for debate and Nigerians clearly saw (or were made to believe) that the legislators were interested in checking how the nation’s resources were being applied. That the members of the three states’ legislature failed to do the same, opting instead to act as a mere rubber-stamp for any and all decisions taken by their respective Chief Executives is a clear indication of the quality of representation in the legislative chambers of those states.

The recently announced decision by the Kebbi State government to suspend the purchase of its own aircraft is certainly a welcome development and also clearly depicts the government as a listening one. One sincerely hopes that the two remaining states will soon follow that commendable example. Undoubtedly, as Pearl C. Buck rightly notes: “Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it may be recalled and perhaps remedied”. However, the “low level of economic underdevelopment of the state resulting from lack of manufacturing industries and poor sources of local revenue”, which was advanced by the state government as justification for the initial decision to buy the aircraft, appears rather hollow and untenable. This is because air travel is usually a form of support service, which serves the purpose of conveying passengers and goods to and from areas of economic activity, e.g. tourism, manufacturing and/or other industrial and commercial activities. Rather than being the driver of these economic activities, therefore, the aviation industry is usually driven by such industries and only thrives after they must have already been established and taken firm roots in an area.

The Way Forward

If the three state governments are really interested in developing air transportation in their region, what they need to do is to either individually or jointly come up with an economic blueprint aimed at boosting the present comatose level of economic activity in their states. This will form the basis for the eventual take-off of a sort of mini industrial revolution in the area through the development of manufacturing and tourism industries, for instance, which will in turn aid the development of the aviation business by either attracting existing airlines to the area or paving the way for the establishment of entirely new ones. It is indeed an open secret that at present, apart from the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria in Sokoto, there are very few other firms, if any, that have up to 300 staff on their payroll throughout the entire land mass occupied by these three states which constituted the old Sokoto State prior to 1991. What should, therefore, preoccupy the minds of their governments is how to address the current frightening level of mass unemployment in their area and not some grandiose venture in the name of some over-priced official jets.

Resorting to the current attempt at jump-starting such a specialised industry like aviation through the purchase of official cum-commercial aircraft amounts to putting the cart before the horse, which even an elementary school pupil would tell you is not only a bad approach but is also highly unlikely to succeed. This is more so when the public sector has consistently failed woefully in running even the relatively less sophisticated Mass Transit system as evident in the ugly sight represented by the numerous carcasses of abandoned and unserviceable vehicles scattered in the various government parks and workshops across the country. Our governors owe us a duty to ensure that they do not make the same or even worse mistake by dabbling into an area they know very little about. Indeed, as Voltaire (1694-1778) rightly states, “history never repeats itself, man does”.