President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the composition of the boards of six aviation agencies under the Ministry of Aviation, less than 24 hours before his administration ends.
The agencies are the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and the newly created Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB).
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Aviation on Sunday, the boards were constituted in line with the recently promulgated and gazetted Acts of the agencies, which stipulate that most of their members are institutional representations.
The statement, signed by the Head of Press and Public Affairs in the Ministry, Odutayo Oluseyi, also listed the names of the chairmen and members of each board.
This development comes after almost a decade of running the agencies without boards, as required by their Acts.
Newsflash Nigeria reports that the Federal Government had failed to inaugurate boards for these agencies since the inception of the present administration in 2015.
Stakeholders had consistently criticised the former Aviation Minister, Senator Hadi Sirika, for allegedly running the agencies without statutory boards.
Newsflash Nigeria reports that the boards were initially constituted in the first tenure of President Buhari but their inauguration was stalled because their composition was not in line with the Acts establishing the agencies. They were never replaced since then.
The boards are expected to play vital roles in furthering the development of the aviation sector as a new administration takes over on Monday.