AIR NIGERIA, the successor to the defunct Nigerian national carrier, Nigeria Airways, has announced the
suspension of both its domestic and international operations today, relieving all but fifty of its employees of their jobs.
An Air Nigeria source told sharpedgenews.com that the company’s owner, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, who had recently been the subject of strong character scrutiny, issued a statement saying that the airline would suspend operations for the next one year in order to allow for “corporate treatment and surgery,” suggesting that all was not well.
Another source revealed to sharpedgenews.com that “it is difficult to know the true position of things with Mr. Ibrahim. You never know what he has or what he does not have; you don’t know when he needs help or when he doesn’t need assistance.”
Some of Mr. Ibrahim’s political associates often complain about his inconsistency. There had been fears of Mr. Ibrahim going bankrupt. He invites journalists and religious figures over for assurances that “all is well.”
In his claim that his businesses are going through “corporate surgery,” he has not paid journalists in his employ as publisher of National Mirror for about three months.
Perhaps trying to bite more than he can chew, he has embarked on another spree of recruitment of reporters for his ambitious Newswatch Daily title. He fired the founding editors of the original Newswatch magazine about a fortnight ago.
The latest development comes amid plans by the federal government to float a new national carrier in the nearest future, according to a July 19 pronouncement President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja, Nigeria.
According to the president, who also disclosed that the age of aircrafts allowed to operate in the Nigeria airspace will be reduced from 22 to 15 years, the new outfit will be “driven by the core private sector with substantial public ownership.”