THE face-off between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Arik Air over the latter’s indebtedness reached its peak on Tuesday, when the management of the airline blacklisted the Managing Director of the FAAN, Mr George Uriesi.
It will be recalled that workers union in the industry had, last week, disrupted operations of Arik Air at the General Aviation Terminal over the indebtedness of the airline to agencies of government totaling N18 billion. Out of the amount, FAAN was owed N7.077 billion.
Following the protest by the unions, Arik announced the shutdown of its domestic operations.
Later, a meeting of all parties concerned were held at the instance of the Minister of Aviation, Mrs Stella Adaeze-Oduah, where peace was brokered.
On Friday, as a result of the truce, the chief executives of all the three major agencies, led by the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr Harold Demuren, addressed a press conference, announcing the truce, having discussed with leaders of the union on the need to let peace reign in the industry, while efforts were being made to recover debts owed by Arik, only for the industry to be awash today with the news of the blacklisting of the FAAN Managing Director,Uriesi.
In the list obtained on Tuesday, the personal-non grata list had Uriesi topping the list of 27 people with reasons for their being barred from patronising Arik “permanently.”
While various reasons were adduced by Arik Air for taking such decisions, it only adduced “management decision” for the blacklist, while it also gave September 24, 2012 as the effective date of Mr Uriesi’s blacklist.
When the news of the blacklist of the FAAN MD filtered through on Monday, an Arik official vehemently denied, saying “that will be petty on the part of any airline to have done.”
But the list, which eventually got to journalists, confirmed that indeed Arik Air management blacklisted the FAAN boss.
Another person on the list is one Mr Omojuwa J. Japhet, who the airline claimed to have lost his ipad “on our flight in June,12. Since then, he has resorted to posting damaging things about Arik Air on Twitter and some other social media sites. All efforts to pacify him proved abortive.”
Others were blacklisted for having engaged Arik staff in one brawl or another at the check-in counters for various reasons.
They included Messr Victor Ogbondah Elo; Lawal Lateef; Obayomi Osoba; Obiriki James; Guanah Raymos; Moulim Boubacal; Moussa Baba; Al-Laranma and one Ibrahim (a Somalian).
Others were Warsame Ahmed Adbukadir (Somalian); Abdelrahman Wala Eldin (Sudanese); Mohammed Murtada Awad Alla Hamad-Sudanese (Briton); Bakare Lanre; Miss Davies-Fasan Adesola; Ejilasisi Kudirat Abike; Musa Azeez-Arisekola; Adesugba Sijuade Adekoya and Oluseye Yakubu Idowu.
Also on the list were Olomiwe Peter Chukwu; Nwachukwu Austin; Orji Dniel Ikechukwu; Uzoh Himan; Adesanya David; Ikukoyi Olufemi Olukay and Grace Nkiruka Guobadia.
No comments:
Post a Comment