Senate Resumes Tomorrow With A Probe Of Aviation Ministry

The Senate will resume tomorrow after its sallah break to consider various contending national issues, including the current crisis rocking the aviation industry.

The Senate  had  summoned the Minister of Aviation,  Mrs. Stella Oduah, and heads of agencies under the  ministry to appear before it in order to explain the real state of the aviation industry.

The decision was taken after the Senators exhaustively discussed a motion moved by Senator Hope Uzodima from Imo West Senatorial District, who drew the attention of his colleagues to the air crash involving a 23 year-old Propeller aeroplane on the fleet of the Associated Airlines three weeks ago.

Uzodima had  expressed concern that the incident which had left families of the victims in agonies and pains, had underscored the need for the country to re-examine its aviation sector to ascertain the real causes of frequent crashes.

He also observed with regret that the propeller airplane bearing the remains of a former governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu,  from Lagos to Akure, crashed barely one minute after it took off from the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Ikeja.

The lawmaker  also noted that the incident which was the seventh in the series of fatal crashes that had claimed the lives of notable Nigerians between June 2,  2012 and October 3, 2013, was “suggestive of a deep seated systemic problem that must be  resolved to avert further occurrence.”

The session,  presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, therefore unanimously agreed to summon the aviation minister and the chief executive officers of all the agencies under her supervision to explain the true state of the aviation sector.

Ekweremadu,  had while ruling on the submission of the senate, clarified that the invitation of Oduah  and  the heads of the  aviation agencies  was not an indictment of their competence.

Rather,  he said the occasion would afford the aviation chiefs, an opportunity to state their efforts at implementing past reports and recommendations of the Senate aimed at ensuring safety and sanity in the   aviation industry.

He had said, “The observation of lapses in the aviation industry expressed by the senators is not also an indictment of the senate committee on aviation.”

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, while briefing journalists after the plenary said the invitation of the minister was pursuant to section 67 (2) of the  1999 Constitution.

Abaribe added that since the invitation extended to the aviation chiefs  was for them to appear before the plenary, the minister and her top officers would  appear before the Senate after  its  resumption on October 22.

Also, Abaribe had said that there was no formal allegation against Oduah,  over the N255m bulletproof car scandal before the Senate.