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By Chinelo Obogo
Over three years after the Federal Government installed the Boeing 737NG aircraft and firefighting simulators at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, the equipment which cost about $21,000,000 (N16,094,655,759) are yet to be certified, Daily Sun can authouritatively reveal.
Daily Sun had earlier reported that the firefighting simulator was bought in 2019, while the Boeing stimulator which was initially supposed to be delivered to Nigeria in December 2016 but didn’t happen because of delay in payment from the Nigerian government, was eventually delivered in 2020.
At the moment, the country is losing out on income that would have accrued to it if the stimulator was put to good use.Official statistics show that on the average, Nigeria spends about $13 million annually to train pilots outside the country using the same equipment. Analysts estimate that with the simulator, the country could save up to $4 million on pilots’ training annually, apart from hotels and flight tickets expenditures.
After Daily Sun’s report was published, the immediate past Rector of the school, Capt. Alkali Modibbo, who was still at the helm of affairs at the institution early last month, told aviation journalists that the reason why the stimulators have been under utilised is because the containers containing all the platforms for the aircraft, arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the contract for the simulator was awarded when Stella Oduah, was the Minister of Aviation, but that the equipment was received when Hadi Sirika, was the Minister of Aviation.
According to him, the intention was to reduce Nigerians going abroad for such training and in the process, spend huge foreign exchange.
He revealed that by the time they finished fixing the simulator in May, the certification that the simulator came with from America had expired. He explained that the management of the school went to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for certification but the regulatory body said that at the time, they didn’t have the capacity to certify the simulators. He, however, said that instructors were undergoing training to that effect and that the issue would be resolved.
“We tried to get certification for the stimulator. We went to Canada, South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). A particular company wanted to charge us over 300,000 euros just to get certificate on the aircraft, which was too expensive. Then, we agreed to train NCAA and NCAT technical staff on the aircraft simulator. So, we got two engineers each from NCAA and NCAT and another two pilots each from the two agencies to train them. In a nutshell, the simulator is about to be put into use. It is not underutilised, but it has not been put to use yet,” Modibbo said.
Efforts to reach the spokesperson of NCAT, Mr. Balarabe Mohammed, proved abortive as text messages sent to him were not responded to.
But, a reliable source at the institution told Daily Sun that the training referred to by Capt. Modibbo was completed last month and that the stimulators would soon be certified.
“Both NCAT and NCAA staff have done an on the job training in Nairobi,Kenya, in preparation for the certification. The training was completed last month and hopefully, the certification would be done soon,” the source said.
Commenting on the profitability of the stimulators, aviation expert, Amos Akpan, told Daily Sun that the purchase of the equipment wasn’t a well thought through project and that the idea of having Nigerian pilots undergo routine simulator training in Nigeria is laudable, but that haphazard project implementation has left it uninstalled for years.
“Why train personnel on it two years after taking delivery of the equipment? What are the contents of the purchase contract? Who decided it must be located in NCAT? What informed that decision? What is the Business plan that induced the purchase of that particular simulator? How many operators are using that simulator now in Nigeria? Statistics of potential utilization, the anticipated revenue and the cost needed to have been done to determine feasibility or otherwise. Where are the projections? Statements should be backed by existing or projected data. Are we delivering business portfolios based on how we feel? That an idea or a concept sounds good does not translate to financial viability. If it has benefits beyond immediate financial profit, document it and let us know,” he said.
