We Have Zero Tolerance For Unsafe Practices- Allen Onyema

Humility is variously seen as the act or posture of lowering oneself in relation to others and this is just the life of Allen Onyema, Chairman Chief Executive, Air Peace Airline, a very young organization in the commercial flying business but making stylish cruise in the air for the comfort and safety of passengers. For Onyema who is also a legal practitioner of high repute, peace is what the whole world needs to appreciate one another, hence his desire to take it to the sky where different shades of people with different nationalities, and faith meet on board his Air planes travelling towards one destination, whether, North, South, West Or East to establish love and harmony.Today, the airline that Barrister Onyema has so far nurtured for the path of greatness is just 100days in the business but what is outstanding about it, is its strong commitment to the rules, thus ensuring safety of the flyers. In this interview which further revealed the chief executive, as a man who is knowledgeable about everything that could guarantee peace for humanity, he speaks of his peace building efforts in Nigeria and how it became the foundation on which Air Peace is built.

Your airline is just a new entrant in the flying business but not many including your customers know about the man behind the business. Could you lead us into your background?

Allen Onyema

I am just an ordinary Nigerian from a very humble background, a lawyer by profession. I went into legal practice as far back as 1990, floated a real estate company as far back as 1992. I was not doing agency or whatever you call it. I was buying my own properties and selling. Lawyers were coming to me to take my properties to sell. So we are the pioneers of buying fallow lands and bulldozing them, getting layout of them and fixed another thing. So I was hitting it very big in the nineties in real estate and later also I floated a trading company in the nineties too.

I went into importation of electronic goods. I signed contracts with some companies in the United Kingdom. I was bringing their goods into the country and I was discharging it at Eagle warehouse in Apapa. I was selling in containers, I was not doing retail trading, it was wholesale trading. So I can say may be blessed by God Almighty.

I also involved in peace building because right from inception, I have been involved in peace building. At the age of 8, I witnessed my father and the elder brother fighting and I never liked that. It was a physical fight and I was ashamed that adults could do that. In order to reconcile them, I pitched my tent with my uncle, not against my father but I ran after him. I went to live with him and I was the only son then. If I could live with him as I said it as a kid that might bring both parties together. So till date everybody in the family still remember that singular act of mine. My family was never surprised about what I turned that to be in life as regards peace building efforts all over. Besides my other businesses, I am heavily into peace building through which I have made constructible name worldwide. As I said before, I am a good example of what can you do for your country and not what your country can do for you. That led me to getting agitated to some of the things happening in the country as it relates to the obvious disunity in the country.

Nigeria is a country of 378 ethnic nationalities and not 250; a lot of people make the mistake. We have 378 ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria and instead of Nigerians harnessing the positive attributes of individual components of this country, it has turned out to be the albatross and that is unfortunate because there should have been strength in diversity. This country is potentially blessed both in human and material resources. We have not been able to develop on the potentials and the bane of our development is ethnicity and religion. It is annoying when politicians use ethnicity and religion to seek power or gain some level of goals. Religion and Ethnicity are very divisive instruments and they are very powerful too. Because they could tear a nation apart; what happened in Burundi, Rwanda and all other places had to be traced to ethnicity. In a multicultural setting like Nigeria, we don’t use to encourage ethnic tendencies because it will be divisive. What we need to do is to promote broad nationalism as against ethic nationalism so the problem of this country is nothing but ethnic nationalism.

Now let us ask you this question. You have a large financial base; strong enough to make you float an airline yet people don’t believe you are the real owner of Air Peace Airline. They allege that you are holding for some politicians. How do you react to that?

I don’t even react to that because it is not necessary. I want people to make my day in court someday; we know of a particular airline owner who has bribed some people to write something in the press. We are just following and some people have agreed to come out to say yes this happened. Sooner or later, you will hear what will happen. So it is not enough to try to undermine somebody because of competition and you will be posting all sorts of news out there. It is not something I want to be addressing because it does not exist.

Probably you want to suspect this same source to be responsible for the recent attack on your aircraft?

Of course, but the State Security Service is handling that and that is why I may not want to go into detail; the state security service has done a lot, they are following it. Let me tell you how it happened because you need to know and people need to know. On November 17, 2014, I was supposed to travel to Kebbi State to sign a contract agreement that will enable us to become the carrier to develop the route. The Kebbi State Governor did a lot; you need to see the airport. The Kebbi state airport is one of the best in Africa. Highly equipped, and you can land 747 at the airport; in fact one of the biggest planes in the world, 787 can land there. The Kebbi state airport is one of the best in the world. The governor did a lot for his people and he wanted the place to be further developed, so he wanted an airline that will come and develop the route for the people to start visiting Kebbi. It is a very peaceful place. A lot of people were even saying Allen, you are going to Boko Haram area and I said no it is a lie, the place is peaceful.

They take care of you with style

So we agreed to do that and on November 17, we were to go and sign the contract and I was receiving calls from Kebbi that they heard that our plane was bad and I said no there is noting like that, that I am on the way to the airport. But when we got to the airport, my Director of Engineering was looking at me and said Oga, the Executive Jet windscreen has been cracked beyond using this plane. I said what happened; everybody was surprised. The British engineers that we are using, a British Maintenance Company went round and said okay let’s use the Donier Jet so we abandoned that one. They did their work around and we took the other jet. Twenty minutes into Kebbi, the aircraft was flying at about 27,000 feet above sea level and we heard a cracking sound, the same co-pilot side that was shattered on the Executive Jet got cracked on the Donier and this happened again on the second plane in just one day. The thing gave way while we were up there and the pilot had to come down immediately to a level that will not give the plane a lot of pressure, which is about 12,000 feet or thereabout. So we now landed successfully at Kebbi airport and everybody was surprised at what could have happened. That Executive Jet was a five year old plane. That plane had just done about 1,340 hours and the second one we took to Kebbi had just done 1,705 hours, so they are still new planes and those two planes were not manufactured on the same day where one can say it has expired or something.

Are you getting my story? So my Boeing Jets were also parked there and we didn’t understand what was going on. Well the pilot examined the windscreen and said two layers of the wind screen were affected remain two other layers and we had to return to Lagos immediately after signing the contract that same day but the truth is that if that windscreen had opened up entirely, we would have been gone by now. So the question is, was it sabotage or a rare coincidence that two planes belonging to the same airline had that problem while going to sign a contract that those planes were assigned for.

Faces that give the peace

We started flight operations into Kebbi on December 1, but when we got back to Lagos we ordered for replacement from the United States but on the third day, I received a call connected to Kebbi that they heard that our planes are still down and that we will not be able to do the December 1, inaugural flight and that one particular airline had been calling to say they were on standby because Air Peace would not be able to do the programme and that the airline is a big airline in this country. They said the airline has been very furious about it; that they are feeling bad that they were not the one that got the contract. So who are those people calling the Kebbi state officials, Nigerians need to know soon? It will interest you to hear that on the eve of our commencement of the operation into Kebbi, the third aircraft was attacked and I was still receiving calls from Kebbi that the people said they were still on standby and they continued to disturb the Kebbi officials.

So the 32 seater was damaged thus making it the third belonging to the same airline and the damage was also done to the same side of the co-pilot. Is that a coincidence or what, no, it was a deliberate act; but who did it? Who are the people calling the Kebbi State officials that we would not be able to do the programme. I am waiting for this country but we are not going to sleep over the matter, I promise that even if it means anything happening to me but I must see that justice to the end. This is because we made the report and I couldn’t believe what I heard later. I don’t want to go into that, the SSS will take that up but I am waiting to see what will happen and I am yet to be convinced that this was not sabotage when one pieced certain things together.

What does the whole scenario translate to in terms of security?

Well, I am not the one to answer that question because you can’t really blame the airport officials because anybody can compromise anybody. You know that was the first time that things that look very bizarre will be happening. On December 20th, Air Peace did not receive fuel and every other airline was flying and I was told there was fuel scarcity. When I got this message I was resting in the house and for five hours none of our planes was airborne. I had to go to the airport to find what was happening. It was then I learnt that the drivers of the marketers operating the trucks had compromised. It was a young man whom I never met before who said Oga Dey don compromise the drivers not to supply you fuel. You see the owners of those marketing companies did not know; these drivers would get to our aircraft drive round it and zoom off. So except this dirty thing stops, we may be in for disaster soon. All operators must be warned to mind the kind of things they do. Those who are bribing journalists to write that ground that other airline should desist from what they are doing. I have heard people planting unruly passengers on board other people’s plane.

Somebody recently entered a plane and was shouting fire! Smoke! while, there was nothing like that. So who sponsored that kind of thing; this is one of the things we have to look into. The coast is clear for everybody; it’s a huge country; if we get it right every other airline will be okay. What the airline operators should do is to come together and see how they can develop the industry, see how they can make government come to their aid by looking at the foreign exchange rate and bring it down. These are the kind of things they should come together to talk about. To see how the Central Bank should allow them a kind of leverage on funding, see how the banks could give you a single digit interest to run your operations so that you could make generality of Nigerians stick to flying and not doing things that would endanger safety. Well unless they start doing that, I am sorry the aviation industry in Nigeria will still remain underdeveloped.

There is serious competition in flying business, what are the innovations you have introduced to sustain your dream on Air Peace?

Air Peace is a different brand entirely. We met a very warped industry when we were coming, where passengers were treated the way the airlines liked where passengers could be delayed a whole day and the flight cancelled at the end of the day without a word of apology. People were being treated with impunity. I have been a victim of such treatment in the hands of some airlines in this country. So Air Peace is coming with something different. Whether you like it or not, you will agree with me that Air Peace has changed the face of the way our travelling is done in this country within the 90 days, we came into operations. A lot of the older airlines have decided to sit up because of Air Peace. Also the competition is good for the flying public and it’s good for the airlines too because they shouldn’t be doing things the way they were doing them before. Now every airline is trying to be courteous towards customers and that is how it should be. Air Peace brought all these to happen. It was when we entered the game that everything changed.

Allen Onyema with Air Peace Crew

Nigerians are beginning to see the difference, ask them they will tell you this airline is different. Another thing that we do that has marked us out is that we have the most experienced pilots in the whole country. Let any airline come out and challenge us on that. We have the most experienced Captains in the industry. All our captains were the Chief Pilots in their former places of work, no exception except Dana and this is because Dana is not operating Boeing. I they were operating Boeing, maybe we would have had their Chief Pilot. We decided to go for optimal strength and that is why a lot of people will tell you that when Air Peace lands you hardly know the plane had landed. The Captains drop our planes like feathers on the ground and passengers are talking about it.

I have seen a passenger jubilating, a woman in crutches saying that “this is the first time I actually have peace” thanking God and when they said that this is the owner of Air Peace, she insisted she must have photograph with me and I obliged her. So, these are the things we are doing today and we have zero tolerance for unsafe practices. We don’t manage anything; our planes are being managed very well by the British. We have a British company, the BCT Aviation Maintenance Company. We brought them down to Nigeria at a huge cost to take charge of our daily maintenance of our planes. If they don’t sign any plane out, that plane does not take to the sky. In fact they give you hell, even little things that could be managed; they will tell you they are grounding the plane. So we have a good maintenance partner in BCT

On spare parts, we have a dedicated source of spare parts and that is the AJ Walter from UK too, the world number one power by the hour vendor. We signed a four year agreement with us to be supplying us spare parts our warehouse is there, they have parts there. If anything happens, and the part is not available the next aircraft coming from Britain will bring it. So we are sure of the kind of spare parts we are putting on the plane. And we to joke with training; I am sure those regulators will tell you that we hardly joke with these things. We try as much as possible to play by the rules. We also have more of Nigerian pilots than expatriates because we want to give our people job.

How can you quantify the level of passenger traffic in the last hundred days?

Yes we have done tremendously well; that’s why I said there are God’s hands in whatever we are doing because people forget that Air Peace is just a new airline, we have not reached 100 days yet we have surpassed the expectation of every one. And the NCAA should be able to tell you that we have done what no airline in this country had done in 100 days. As per passengers figure, no airline has done that record. We must have flown over 80,000 passengers within the period and it has never happened before for a new airline to do that. And we thank Nigerians who had supported us all the way and we promised them that their safety once on board our air plane is assured by God Almighty.