Daily Independent Online.
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Friday, July 23, 2004.
Who owns SAHCOL?
During his national ministerial press briefing in
Abuja last week, Aviation Minister, Mallam Isa Yuguda, stirred up controversy
when he declared that Skypower Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) was
never a subsidiary of the liquidated Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL). Aviation
Correspondent, Rotimi
Durojaiye and Aviation Reporter, Shola Ogunode, spoke with stakeholders in the industry
on the issue.
On April 5, this
year, the presidency ordered the redeployment of two officials of Skypower
Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) and appointed Mr. Iketun Bosun as
the acting general manager. The move then followed the power tussle that had
trailed the management of the company, a subsidiary of the liquidated Nigeria
Airways Limited (NAL). Three weeks before Bosun’s appointment, the
pioneer general manager of the company, Oluropo Owolabi, who was just reinstated, and the former
acting general manager, Mr. Bello Salihu, had both taken charge of the
leadership of SAHCOL, with either relinquishing power to the other.
Salihu, a former
director of fuel, NAL, had acted for Owolabi while the latter was being
investigated on charges of misconduct. Few months after Owolabi was cleared by
the panel of enquiry and was reinstated to his former position, Salihu refused
to vacate his seat, arguing then that since he was deployed from NAL to SAHCOL
by the Mninistry of Aviation and not the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE),
only the ministry had the powers to remove him from office.
Government’s
efforts at dousing the tension came on July 6, this year, with the appointment
Zacchaeus Laolu Owolabi, a banker from Inland Bank Plc, as the substantive
general manager of the company. The controversy over the appointment of
Owolabi, (alleged to be Yuguda’s brother-in-law) was still raging when
Yuguda declared at a press briefing in Abuja last week that SAHCOL does not
belong to NAL. His words: “SAHCOL does not belong to Nigeria Airways and
Skypower Catering and Hotel Limited. The registration was only completed last
week. It was owned earlier by some private people in Nigeria Airways. Nigeria
Airways breached all that makes it a responsible company, that was why it
collapsed. We are registering it now so that we can prepare it for
privatisation and its subsidiaries. We have to re-register it and give it back
to its rightful owners.”
First to fire the
salvo was the acting General Secretary of National Union of Air Transport
Employees (NUATE), Mr. Saidu Abdul Rasaq. He challenged the minister at the Radio
House venue of the conference to convince Nigerians that SAHCOL does not belong
to NAL. Later in an interview with Daily Independent in his office in
Lagos, the NUATE scribe said the union was against the appointment of Owolabi
as the general manager of SAHCOL, saying it was a ploy by the minister and his
cronies to take over the company. “That was what they did at Nigerian
Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) and we are going to resist this
vehemently”, he said . Abdul Rasaq added that it was impossible for the
government to destroy NAL and want to take over its babies. “We are not
going to disclose our strategies but I can tell you that the minister will
regret that statement”, he stressed.
A member of the
Senate Committee on Aviation, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, also faulted Yuguda,
saying his claims were “absolutely absurd”.
“If this is
the case then, the minister should refund all the money ever spent in the
organisation to the government purse”, he said.
Investigations by
Daily Independent revealed that SAHCOL was the former ground handling
department of NAL. It was first registered on March 21, 1996 with a certificate
of incorporation number RC290723. The shareholders then were Captain All-Well
Brown (one share); Mrs. O.A. Owolabi, then NAL counsel (one share) and NAL as
corporate body. It was re-registered again in 2001 with an increment in share
capital. The shareholders were Mr. Jonathan Jiya, managing director of NAL;
Alhaji A.Oseni, representing the Ministry of Aviation; Captain Abiodun Akerele,
NAL’s director of flight operations; Alhaji Oluropo Owolabi, general
manager, and NAL as a company with 99,999 shares.
SAHCOL was
registered in 1996 along with other subsidiaries of NAL namely: Skpower
Properties Limited (Skypol), Skypower Catering and Hotel Limited and Skypower
Printing and Publishing Company.
In his book, WT
040 Nigeria Airways’ Flight of Problems, former spokesman of NAL, Chief
Femi Ogunleye, said on pages 111- 113 that all the companies were incorporated
under the Companies and Allied Matters Act of 1990 on March 21,1996, and that
they became fully autonomous and functional in October 1999.
According to
Ogunleye, “out of the four companies, SAHCOL has created a tremendous
impact in the life of aviation industry in Nigeria, having grappled the
nitty-gritty of the business, focusing on effective and expeditious service to
clients. The company handles scheduled foreign airlines operating into Lagos.
Kano and Port Harcourt. This is in addition to Nigeria Airways in all the
nation’s airports. Before it
was excised from the main core of airline business, which Nigeria Airways
epitomizes, the ground handling department had equally been incapacitated by
the decay that clipped the wings of the national airline. No functional
equipment, nor were the personnel in delivery spirit. Clients were dwindling by
day to join the Nigeria Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO), which has almost
become an octopus”.
Ogunleye said on
page 112 that “creating SAHCOL, therefore, was not the ultimate but how
to secure for it the right manpower and leadership that will transform the
business into an efficient service provider, profit centre and a lifeline for
the dying national airline.”
On how Alhaji
Ropo Owolabi became the pioneer general manager of SAHCOL, Ogunleye explained :
“Against his background as an all-rounder, who had successfully managed
sensitive positions such as district offices in Rome, London, New York, not to
talk of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos where only the tough treads, it wasn’t
too hard for the airline’s management to wade through the thick intrigues
that encapsulated the choice of a leader for SAHCOL before (Alhaji Oluropo)
Owolabi won the slot. The choice of the first general manager of SAHCOL and his
team of management disappointed neither Nigeria Airways nor the Ministry of
Aviation, as the company has performed beyond expectation within its first
anniversary. The company lists passenger and baggage handling, cargo and mail
handling, ramp, warehousing , unit load device control, flight control and crew
administration, aircraft servicing such as cleaning and toilet service and
haulage, among the various aviation related services in its portfolio.”
SAHCOL made
Nigeria proud through the efficient services it rendered to the American
government and former President Bill Clinton in the handling of the American
Presidential flight to Abuja during the official visit of the former US leader.
It was obvious
from available statistics that SAHCOL was one of the subsidiaries of NAL. It is
yet to be seen how Yuguda and his ministry intend to convince Nigerians that
the company belongs to some private individuals.
