The House of Representatives in its Thursday sitting insisted that its resolution on the crashed Dana aircraft at Iju-Ishaga, a suburb of Lagos on June 3, 2012 must be implemented to the letter.
The House Committee on Aviation, together with its counterparts in the Senate had launched a probe into the ill-fated Dana flight on a scheduled trip, on which over 160 passengers and crew members perished. Its recommendations had included the sack of the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), Dr Harold Demuren for ‘professional negligence and incompetence’.
It also demanded the revocation of the current Air Operating Certificate (AOC) of Dana Air, saying it was not issued in compliance with NCAA’s Civil Regulations Guidelines 2009.
The resolution on Thursday was based on a motion by Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai, entitled, “need to implement House resolutions on the report of investigation on the crash of Dana and Allied Aircrafts.”
In the motion, he mentioned the fact that the government had grounded Dana Air decisively to ease investigation and other administrative actions. However, on 4 January 2013, while the House was on its Christmas vacation and the implementation of its resolutions pending, the minister of aviation vacated the grounding order by authorizing Dana Air to return to operation in flagrant disregard of the resolution directing that ‘Dana current Airline Operator Certificate (AOC) should be revoked because it was not issued in compliance with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Civil Regulation Guidelines 2009.”
To this end, House Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, directed the House standing committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure full implementation of the resolutions.
