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From Fred Itua, Abuja
The Chairman of the United Nigeria Airlines, Obiora Okonkwo, has revealed that airline operators are yet to feel the measures taken by the federal government to ameliorate the impact of high aviation fuel.
Addressing reporters in Abuja, after his investiture as national grand patron of the Ndigboamaka Progressives Market Association, Okonkwo said not much has changed since the Nigerian Government waded into the situation that almost grounded the sector.
“Nothing much has changed, just that the government of the day was magnanimous, kind and listened to us and put a lot of things in motion to soften the impact of the aviation fuel price increase,” he said.
“We are happy and grateful to them but the truth of the situation is that those initiatives taken are still at the implementation stage, they have not been fully implemented so we are not feeling the impact yet.
“The aviation fuel has continued to rise but I can tell you that some of those promises are being implemented.”
Okonkwo said as the national grand patron of Ndigboamaka, the umbrella organisation of all Igbo traders in the 58 markets in Lagos, he wants to guide the organisation into “the next phase of their activities and developments.”
“They want to change the perception that Igbo don’t have leaders – but they want to come together under one leadership to say that they have to move from the perception of the informal sector to the formal sector,” he said.
“They have to prove to people that traders, Igbo people, are not just those who have not gone to school or may not know how to speak English or organise themselves within them. But within them, they have what it takes to provide leadership and build society.”
