Arik Air strengthens Dakar route with Cotonou, Accra connections

Arik Air, West and Central Africa’s largest airline has extended two of its existing routes as the airline continues its expansion programme for the regional West African services.

Starting March 10, 2014, Arik Air will add Cotonou to its daily route network by operating the Lagos-Dakar flight via Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin Republic. Similarly, Arik Air will from March 10 extend its daily Abuja-Accra service to Dakar.

The Lagos- Cotonou –Dakar route will operate daily with the outbound flight departing the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos at 7:15 pm (local time) and arrive at Cotonou International Airport at 7:45 pm (local time).

As a result of these developments, Arik Air will be the only carrier offering daily nonstop service to Dakar from Accra and Cotonou each respectively catering for the needs of both the business and leisure passenger market segments.

The two routes will be operated using the Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft configured to sit 10 Business Class and 64 Economy class passengers. These routes shall be upgraded to the larger Boeing 737-700 aircraft from the upcoming summer season onwards providing freight forwarders of an additional two tons of belly cargo space to facilitate import and export of commercial goods.

Commenting on the development, Chris Ndulue, Arik Air’s Managing Director and Executive Vice President, said: As the dominant commercial airline in West Africa, Arik Air is always seeking to strengthen its services in the region to give guests comfort and value for money. We will not shy away from providing greater choice and a convenient, accessible network to our valued customers in the West Coast of Africa.”

Arik Air is Nigeria and West Africa’s largest airline and operates mainly from two hubs at Murtala Mohammed Airport Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja.

It operates a fleet of 26 state-of-the art regional, medium haul and long haul aircraft including Airbus A330-200 and A340-500 making the airline the first operator of the wide bodied aircraft in West Africa.

The airline currently serves 20 destinations across Nigeria as well as Accra (Ghana), Banjul (Gambia), Dakar (Senegal), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Monrovia (Liberia), and Douala (Cameroon), Luanda (Angola), London Heathrow (UK), Johannesburg (South Africa) and New York JFK (USA).

Culled from Businessday

Jonathan Resets His Presidency, Sacks Oduah, Three Others

 Ms. Stella Oduah

•Senate confirms Gusau, Obanikoro, four ministerial nominees

By Omololu Ogunmade and Jaiyeola Andrews   with agency report

Following months of procrastination, President Goodluck Jonathan finally reset the tone of his presidency by sacking his Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, who had been indicted by the House of Representatives and a presidential panel for approving the procurement of two bulletproof BMW cars at the cost of N255 million for her personal use by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), a parastatal under her ministry.

Three other ministers, who were also relieved of their posts by the president yesterday, were the Minister of Police Affairs, Capt. Caleb Olubolade; Minister of Niger Delta, Godsday Orubebe; and Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama.
Their sack from the cabinet was not unexpected as speculation had been rife since December that the president would shake up his cabinet.

The likelihood of changes in the cabinet was also heightened when the president on Monday relieved his Chief of Staff, Mike Ogiadomhe, of his post.
Providing insight into the cabinet shake-up, a source in the presidency said the president finally did the “needful” as the country enters an election year by ridding his cabinet of those with credibility crisis and political ambitions.
He said: “Recall that he had fired about 12 ministers in September and then fired Ogiadomhe and four more ministers this week. So the objective is to replace with those who can deliver and reset the tone of his presidency as the elections loom.”

Also speaking on the cabinet shake-up yesterday, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maka, told State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting that the ministers were asked to go by the president so that they could pursue their political aspirations.
Ngama, Olubolade and Orubebe have never hidden their desire to contest for the governorship post in their respective states of Yobe, Ekiti and Delta.

Maku said with their departure, the Minister of  State, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ms. Olajumoke Akinjide, would supervise the Police Affairs Ministry, while the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, would oversee the Ministry of Aviation.
He also clarified that contrary to reports in some newspapers linking Ogiadomhe to the kerosene subsidy scam in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the president had absolved his former chief of staff on the grounds that he was not a member of staff of the national oil company.
According to Maku, Jonathan told his cabinet members that Ogiadomhe resigned to pursue his political ambition in Edo State.
He said the president also thanked the ministers who were asked to step down yesterday.

On if the ministers would be asked to go in batches since many others in the cabinet still harbour political ambitions, Maku said: “That is left for the president to decide. I am not the president but I believe sincerely that it depends on what they have communicated to Mr. President. He does not just take those decisions in isolation.”
In a related development, despite efforts by senators of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to stall the confirmation of the president’s ministerial nominees, the senate yesterday cleared six of them.

The APC senators were complying with the directive of their party to block executive bills and senate confirmation hearings.
Accordingly, upon the preparedness of the senate to commence screening of the nominees, Senator Anthony Adeniyi (Ekiti South) had cited Orders 118, 119, 120, 121 and 122 of the Senate Standing Rules stating that 120(a) specifies that the “Senate shall not consider the nomination of any person who has held any public office... Unless there is a written evidence that he has declared his assets and liabilities as required by Section 11 (1) of Part l of the fifth schedule to the constitution.”

In the same vein, he cited Order 120(b) which provides that “all nominees should also submit themselves to finger print clearance by the Force Criminal Investigations Department of the Nigeria Police Force.”
Adeniyi therefore argued that in-as-much as the documents stated in the orders had not been made available to the senators, the proper thing was for the senate to put the confirmation on hold.
Earlier, Babafemi Ojudu (Ekiti Central) had cited Order 14 of the Senate Rules which states that as a matter of privilege, any senator may rise to raise any issue on the floor of the chamber.

According to him, the credentials of the nominees which had been circulated a few minutes to the commencement of the confirmation, did not present senators with enough time to scrutinise such credentials, adding that going ahead with the confirmation would therefore portray them as being unserious.
But Mark while ruling on Ojudu’s submission said it was not so difficult for any senator to go through the credentials right away and ask any affected nominee any questions he deemed fit.

He also told Adeniyi that it would not be the first time they would screen nominees without the attachment of those credentials, adding that the senator was free to ask nominees any questions bordering on such matters contained in the orders he cited.
Having counselled them on what to do, he ruled both of them out of order and the confirmation commenced immediately.
First to take the floor was Senator Musiliu Obanikoro (Lagos), who was not asked any question as a one-time senator. He was however given the opportunity to express himself on any issue he deemed fit.

Obanikoro therefore recalled how as a senator he had sponsored Anti-casualisation Bill which sought to stop the oppression of Nigerians by foreign employers, among others, and how he raised Nigeria's investment portfolio from N600 million to N4.6 billion as Nigeria's former High Commissioner to Ghana.

He was thereafter asked to “take a bow and go”, just as Hon. Mohammed Wakil (Borno), a former Majority Leader in the House of Representatives was also accorded the similar privilege of the “bow and go procedure” without being subjected to any form of questioning.

In the same vein, former National Security Adviser, General Aliu Gusau (rtd.), was asked to bow and go without answering any question perhaps in recognition of his status as a retired general who had served in various capacities and notably because he was also Mark's senior in the military.

But there were some grumbling in the upper chamber that the senate lost a good opportunity to ask the retired general pertinent questions on the security challenges facing the country since he's expected to take over the portfolio of Defence Minister.

During his screening, Nigeria's High Commissioner to China, Ambassador Aminu Wali, noted that even though Nigeria had been supportive to many African countries, it had failed to exploit its benevolence to add value to its status as he argued that these countries hardly showed appreciation for such gestures.
He also recalled that hundreds of Nigerians are in Chinese prisons because they are engaged in what he described as “bad business” in China.

Also cleared yesterday were Akom Eyakenyi (Akwa Ibom) and Lawrencia Mallam (Kaduna).
Eyakenyi was once a Commissioner for Industry and Tourism in Akwa Ibom, while Mallam was a local government chairman and Special Adviser to former Governor Ahmed Makarfi.

The outstanding six nominees who may be screened and cleared today are Boni Haruna (Adamawa), Khaliru Alhassan (Sokoto), Jamilla Salik (Kano), Abdujelili Adesiyan (Osun), T. W. Danagogo and Asabe Ahmed (Niger).

Culled from Thisday

NCAT To Award Degrees, Opens Lagos Campus Soon

The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) Zaria, has disclosed plans to start training students to fly helicopter even as the college would start this year leading to the award of degrees.
Speaking in an interview on the progress made by the college in the past three years, Captain Chinyere Kalu, rector of the college said training of helicopter pilots would commence as soon as the college takes delivery of a Bell 206 helicopters presently in Lagos. It became necessary to raise capacity in helicopter training because about 80 percent of helicopter pilots used by oil companies for off shore oil rigs in the Niger Delta are foreigners.
Kalu also disclosed that the college was embarking on refleeting of all its training aircraft in the college as the current ones were old and becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. “We have 23 aircraft and we need more, we are in the process of refleeting because the single engine aircraft we have been flying are being depleted by the day due to age and incidents, ” she explained.
She also explained that the college’s third hangar would be put into use soon after repairs adding that it would  take care of the aircraft instead of ferrying them abroad for maintenance. She said it was extremely expensive and uneconomical to have these aircraft fixed abroad and returned into the country but added that with hangar, repairs would  be carried out within the college.
The rector explained that the college was pursuing and processing accreditation for its degree course with the Aviation Accreditation Board International in the United States  of America(USA).  According to her, the college intends to offer courses on aerospace engineering. “We want to offer degree course along with flying, despatchers course, aviation management and so on. So there are a lot of courses we would want to offer beyond what we are offering now and also in line with aviation training,” she stated.
She also made a case for the employment of indigenous pilots stressing that Nigerian pilots understand the terrain and weather of the country and  were better trained than their foreign counterparts and appealed to Nigerian airline operators to be patriotic by employing indigenous pilots.
She said the college was striving hard to meet international standards and urged the various state governments to take advantage of the college to sponsor and train their indigenes in aviation courses.
source: http://leadership.ng

U.S. Warns Airlines Of Toothpaste Threat Before Sochi

The U.S. Government has warned U.S. and some other foreign airlines connecting to Russia during the Olympics to watch out for toothpaste tubes, as it could be used to conceal materials to build a bomb aboard an airplane.
Dpa reports that the Homeland Security Department declined to elaborate on the warning, but stressed that it regularly shares relevant information with airlines, including those involved in international events like the Winter Olympics.
Peter King, a congressman, and member of the Homeland Security committee in the House of Representatives, said his committee was briefed about the threat.
He said the committee was convinced that security was tight within the Olympics grounds in Sochi.
King stressed that getting to the venue and its surrounding areas was the real cause for concern.
“I don’t think it’s worth the risk of going,’’ he said.
John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, said that the U.S.  has 140 personnel,  including FBI, military and embassy staff working under one roof with the Russians.
He said there must be a commonsense precautions and anybody who wants to go was free to go.
“It will be as safe as you can make any public event in a place where we know there have been some threats of late.’’
Culled :http://leadership.ng

Miss Centenary: Arik acquires queen for 100 years

Former beauty queen and initiator of Miss Nigeria’s Centenary Pageant, Ms. Nike Oshinowo, has begun a tour of corporate organisations and service industry with the winner of the beauty pageant, Miss Queen Ubah.
The new queen, who was led by Oshinowo, also the Creative director and CEO of AOE Events and Entertainment Company, organisers of the beauty pageant, was received last Friday by Arik Air’s Managing Director, Mr. Chris Ndulue, at the company’s corporate office, Ikeja, Lagos.
Oshinowo, who was accompanied by other top officials of the company, said the visit was in appreciation of its support towards the pageant.
According to her, “from the outset, I did know that AOE’s relationship with Arik Air is particularly special. And I must say that the relationship we have built is close to my heart. As a true partner to all my projects, the Centenary Pageant in Yenagoa was quite a feat and Arik Air once again rose to the occasion and has acquired for itself a queen for the next 100 years.
“We crowned a queen and her name is Queen Ubah. She is going to reign for 100 years. Long may you reign; I pray nothing happens to you, because if anything happens to you, Nigeria will have to bear the cost. This is going to be a life-time Catholic marriage because there is no divorce in this marriage between the Nigeria’s Centenary Queen and Arik Air.”
Against the backdrop of resentment occasioned by the late arrival of the beauty queen, Oshinowo said: “She is a brilliant queen and such a lovely young lady. Today is her first official outing, and she is learning about punctuality.
“She has promised me that she intends to wear that crown and title with dignity and honour, and more importantly with humility. It is her first courtesy call. She is a fast learner, ladies and gentlemen. She is our queen for the next 100 years: It is for us to teach, nurture, love and respect her. We should also try to accommodate her little shortcomings rather than put her through the usual things that Nigerian celebrities go through.”
While welcoming the Queen, Ndulue noted that “That is a long reign. I pray that God will preserve you through this period.”
The Arik Air boss promised that his company would continue to support the queen through the period of her reign, noting that pageantry is about role-modelling. “We will continue to do what we should do to ensure that our dreams for Nigeria are actualised. The essence of beauty pageants is to ensure that we continue to identify role models in the society and it is something that the company will need to encourage, as opposed to violence and other negative vices among youths,” he added.
Ubah, who expressed her gratitude to Arik for flying her and the other girls around during the period of the competition, said: “I can’t tell you enough how good my colleagues and I felt throughout the competition. At the same time, I am blessed to have you support me throughout my reign as queen. On my part, I will do my best to keep the partnership aglow.”
Oshinowo also described the 25-year-old beauty queen, a graduate of Geology from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, as a “well-trained girl brought up in the Christian way, attended Caleb International School and only pierced her ear when she was 12 years old.”
She added: “This is a girl from a decent home, whose pastor called to congratulate her, saying he is proud of her. We need to let the young people know that you don’t have to be a ‘bad’ person to go into the beauty world or the fashion industry.”
When asked what will happen if the queen is unable to complete her reign on the grounds of marriage or any other cogent reason, Oshinowo said the first runner-up would automatically take over, as another pageant would be in the next 100 years.
“We need to move beyond that whole thing of whether the husband will not approve of her to continue as queen. This is because the man that will marry her will know that he is marrying the Nigerian Centenary Queen. She will remain Nigeria’s Centenary Queen until she dies or until Nigeria attains another centenary. So, whoever marries her, Nigeria adopts him because they are Nigeria’s children. When she dies, Nigeria buries her; when she graduates, Nigeria celebrates,” she said.
Although it is not clear how the Centenary Queen will operate or Nigeria’s obligation to her, Oshinowo explained that “she is on salary and Nigeria is going to pay her. The essential thing is that she belongs to us. She was crowned to celebrate the amalgamation of Nigeria. She is our symbol of unity. And that is what she remains throughout her life.”
Ubah emerged winner in the maiden edition of the Nigeria’s Centenary Pageant held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State in 2013.
She beat 36 girls, who represented the 36 states and the FCT.
The Mbaino, Imo State-born beauty queen said her mother, a member of the Deeper Life Christian Church, encouraged her to enter for the pageant.
Culled:  www.thenationonlineng.net