The Group Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Mesfin Tasew, has blamed Nigerian politics over the failure of establishing a national carrier for the country.
According to him, Ethiopian Airlines had the intention of helping the Nigerian government create a profitable airline but the process was politicized by Nigerian airlines.
The partnership to create Nigeria Air which was commenced by the last administration of President Buhari and handled by former Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, has brewed a lot of controversy, with the current Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo, saying that Nigeria will not benefit from the deal.
It is the first time the Group CEO Ethiopian Airline’s CEO is talking about the controversial deal after the present administration put a stop to it.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Tasew stated they had finalized the project to help Nigeria set up an airline.
He said, “We had a great hope of establishing a very strong national carrier for Nigeria. We started but unfortunately it didn’t become successful after the change of government in Nigeria; but that project is closed now.
“We don’t have a current plan to go to Nigeria as it stands. We don’t have the intention to partner with any of the Nigerian airlines to date because it has been politicized.
“We tried to help the country by partnering with the government and other institutional investors in Nigeria to use our expertise, our experience and establish a reliable airline that would be profitable in the short term. But as you may have read from the media, it was not welcomed by the Nigerian airlines.
“They considered it in a wrong direction. They believed that if Ethiopian Airlines goes into Nigeria it will hurt their business; which is not right. Our intention was to help the country but since they objected to the idea, there is no need for Ethiopian Airlines to go there as long as they don’t accept it, we don’t want to be a problem there.”
