Nigeria Air: HURIWA Demands Sirika’s Arrest 

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to swing into action and probe immediate past Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, over what it described as the ‘fraudulent’ Nigeria Air.

Development Diaries reports that in a statement, the group’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said that the hurried unveiling of Nigeria Air by Sirika on 26 May, the last official day of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, was suspicious.

HURIWA demanded the arrest of the former minister, especially since the Senate and House of Representatives committees on aviation had separately declared that the project was a fraud.

Onwubiko said, ‘This is a fraud of the highest order and the lawmakers have labelled it so, including the suspension of all activities regarding the sham called national carrier.

‘The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must swing into action now that both the upper and lower chambers have declared the project as a fraud.

‘The anti-graft agency must swiftly arrest, investigate and prosecute the ex-minister, if found culpable.

‘There are a lot of questions that Sirika must be made to answer, including the whereabouts of the N85 billion splurged on the project’.

The federal government had unveiled the logo of the national carrier during the Farnborough Air Show in London in July 2018.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and a compilation of budgetary allocations between 2016 and 2023, the aviation ministry under Sirika spent over N85 billion on Nigeria Air.

Source: 21st Century Chronicle

Photo source: Hadi Sirika

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