Date Published: 10/14/09

Sir,

Arik Air and the Presidential Fleet

As I browsed www.saharareporters.com on October 10, 2009, I came across a posted story “ Arik Air-Nigeria 001 Scam. ” The story revealed how the Presidency must have spent the sum of N150million in hiring Arik Air for a five-day visit to Venezuela in September 2009; on a trip that neither included the President nor the Vice President. This action took place in spite of the fact that Nigeria has idle aircrafts in the presidential fleet that could have undertaken the journey instead of recklessly spending public fund.

The most curious aspect of the report was that "Nigeria-001" call sign is used only when the President is on board an aircraft. With that call sign, the aircraft carried all the diplomatic privileges including free of passage without search. Therefore there is an urgent need to investigate how these presents come to be. The investigation should find out if such privileges could have been used for fraudulent practice since the aircraft was on a mission and probably under the pretence that the President was on board the aircraft whereas it was not so. It should also cover to ascertain reason why those that went for the mission could not have flown commercial airlines which would have cost the nation anything more than say N5million.

These are the type of things the world see and call us 419ers and crooks.  Our rebranding project is a hoax.  The Sony advertisement which recently painted our country wrongly can be helped with this type of situation. The outcome of the investigation must be made public, if the President should be taken seriously in his fight against corruption and waste

Chief Pius Umukoro, Effurum Road, Warri, Delta State.