Chief Allen Onyema, the Chief Executive of Air Peace Airline, has said he believes President Bola Tinubu means well for Nigeria, and is not the cause of the current predicaments in the country, but rather his appointed officials.
Onyema, boss to Africa’s largest private airline was being interviewed Saturday by journalists.
“The problem is not President Tinubu. He means well but he should look at his appointees,” Onyema remarked. “It is the appointees of the government that cause problems, not the elected man. They block the elected man from seeing the truth about things.”
While acknowledging criticisms aimed at Tinubu, Onyema remained confident that Tinubu possesses the capacity to overcome the nation’s challenges, drawing parallels to Tinubu’s tenure as Lagos governor between 1999-2007.
He cautioned the government however to look more to local investors to power the economy rather than tending to an overreliance on foreign investment. “It is only indigenous investments that can protect this country. Foreign investments are good, but you must encourage indigenous investments to stabilize and succeed,” Onyema asserted.
“Indigenous investments provide the real jobs and when the chips are down, they are the ones to save the country.”
Drawing lessons from his own air travel industry, Onyema expressed frustration with some unspecified challenges faced by his airline despite its significant contributions and sacrifices to Nigerians and her economy. He boasted that his airline had patriotically challenged the predatory airfare pricing practices of some foreign carriers by slashing prices for specific air routes.
“Do you know the millions of dollars or billions of Naira Air Peace has single-handedly saved for this country by what we did? From N17 million, we brought a Business class flight to London down to N4 million. From N6 million we brought economy class flight down to N1.2 million and even afforded our students a further 15% of the N1.2 million.”
Onyema’s Air Peace has often during times of national tragedy and emergencies, offered free evacuation flights to Nigerians in trouble spots around the world; South Africa, India, Sudan, and Ukraine among others.
He also personally played a pivotal role in ending the anti-government militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta between 2007 and 2010.
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