Wednesday, January 22, 2014

I'm Change Agent,that's Why They're After Me- Stella Oduah


 

BY ONU OKORIE, ABUJA
Aviation minister, Princess Stella Oduah has disclosed why her critics remain unrelenting in their criticism against her and the nation’s aviation industry under her supervision, noting that she is 'an agent of change'. Speaking in Abuja yesterday in an interview, she said beyond the political side to her travails, ‘entrenched interest in the aviation sector who. For over 38years have held the sector by the jugular and refused to allow any meaningful development and change take place, ‘are bent on rubbishing her for very selfish interest.Oduah who said she would not allow such interest to derail her from her goal of transforming the country’s aviation sector noted that our airports were a damning commentary on our status as part of the airspace existed without the requisite navigational equipments and facilities to make the airspace safe; these category of persons saw no evil and heard no evil while they happily clapped their ways to the banks! This group has carried on with bitter venom, throwing decency and honour overboard, lying and misleading the Nigerian populace even when they knew the truth because my team and i changed the game in the favour of Nigeria attaining her pride of place in the comity of nations.
 

She said of this category, ‘that is the entrenched, corrupt , profligate individuals and entities who have caused the serious rot in the aviation sector ,i owe no apologies; all i owe them is to further inform that the current generation has seen through them and are no longer willing to tolerate their antics.’
Preferring not to comment on the notorious bullet proof cars saga, the minister said the transformation agenda of the president Goodluck Jonathan has changed the ways of doing things significantly in the country, as the president recognised the infrastructural deficit and has taken very bold steps to addressing them in order to bequeath to the next generation a nation that can compete favourably in the comity of nations and imbue our next generation with pride and patriotism.

‘The massive investment and the aggressive prosecution of this agenda in this regard have seen the aviation sector being transformed.Today,22 Airports owned by federal Government are at various stages of becoming decent and world class terminals. Nigeria’s airspace has become one of the safest  in the deployment of modern navigational equipments and infrastructures.The oversight capacity of the whole sector has been strengthened with the relevant regulations in place and the training and retraining of personnel.

Our National Aviation Policy has been reviewed to chart the path to safer and secure aviation sector. The plan to make Nigeria have a national carrier is at an advanced stage of implementation. The pursuit of an aviation sector that is self-sustaining is being pursued with all aggression and vigour.
Regretting that all the efforts to bring change to aviation sector have been resisted with vigour by the entrenched interests,’ that have been ripping off the nation’,Oduah added that her resolve to put her foot down in the national interest and stop the rape of the country’s patrimony has become her undoing.
‘We have had to confront frontally very powerful forces that have held the sector hostage. My team and i are not people who will see things going very wrong fold our arms and complain and not lift a finger to do anyting.We dared to act, convinced that it was in the national interest to do so.
She said though her administration in the ministry has not arrived its destination yet, Nigerians who are witnesses to the rot of yester-years are now proud of their nation, seeing what is going on in the aviation sector.
‘What we are doing in the sector, together with the effort in other equally important sectors, have given hope to the mass  of our people that we can do something, apart  from complaining, about the decay in our national life. In doing what we have done, the purveyors of the rot and corruption that have characterized the sector have at no time folded their arms. They have fought back every inch of the way. The latest false and wicked allegation of purchase of bulletproof cars for me by the NCAA was another of the fabrications in their arsenals of lies to discredit my team and make our reformation of the sector lack credibility in the hope that will clear the coast for them to return to their wicked old ways. But we have only one message for this group: The Nigerian people now know better and will no longer tolerate them, ‘the minister said.
For Details Read:The Nigerian Pilot 22 January 2014.

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