The federal government on Tuesday said due to the public importance of
the Nigerian Air project, there is no law that stops it from setting up an airline in the interest of the country stressing that no rationale court of competent jurisdiction will forestall the country’s proposed national air project.
Minster of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, who was responding to allegation that airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) approaching a federal high court to stop the proposed deal between the federal government and Ethiopian Airline for the National Carrier from being executed.
Sirika, who spoke in Lagos at a stakeholders meeting held at the Lagos airport said “I am not aware of that anyone is in court. I don’t have any court paper; otherwise, I am not interested. I cannot see any rational court that will say that I am stopping somebody from establishing a company because Nigeria Air is a limited liability company known to the Nigerian laws in the corporate affairs
commission.”
The minister said “If anybody wants to come and invest in that company, there is no law in Nigeria that stops him from doing so. If there are foreigners coming to invest, nobody stops them from investing. You can own a company 100 percent. What would you say to Shell, Unilever and Julius Berger? There are companies in Nigeria registered by Nigerian law and people are coming to invest. This is what we want. We want Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).”
Sirika said Nigeria is willing to welcome investor in the airline project affirming that “If people or Nigerians are investing in the airline of $200 million into Nigeria. We want more of them.”
