SHUTTERED ARIK AIR ACCUSES AVAITION MINISTER OF DEMANDING 5% SHARE

Ms Stella Oduah

Officials at Arik Air, whose domestic flight operations across Nigeria were grounded yesterday, have claimed that the carrier was forced out of business for refusing to part with 5% of its corporate shares as Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, demanded.Click on read more below to continue.....

The beleaguered airline circulated a text message accusing Ms. Oduah of vindictively fomenting crisis within the airline for denying her demand to receive a stake of 5% in Arik. The text message read, “Due to persistent hostility of the Ministry of Aviation, with a minister who is demanding a 5 percent equity in a business where she has no investment...and FAAN management, which has culminated in the use of FAAN staff to stop the airline operations and lock in checked-in passengers in Lagos this morning, Arik Air has suspended all domestic operations until further notice. This issue [borders] on personal interests and not payment of bills; since FAAN has been collecting.”

 A senior official of Arik stated “It is a pity that a minister can cause so many problems for an airline just because she did not have her way,” the official said.Ms. Oduah is regarded as one of the closest ministers to President Goodluck Jonathan. In the 2011 general election, she served as treasurer for Mr. Jonathan’s campaign. The Arik source claimed that the minister pressured owners of the airline to hand her a 5% stake in the ownership of Arik, asserting that she was making the demand on behalf of President Jonathan.The shady and crisis-prone airline is believed to be owned by interests who benefited massively from grand corruption during the administration of Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State and the tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.