Tor Uja, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission, has urged the Federal Government to improve the state of airports and adequately fund the country’s aviation.
Uja said this when he received a delegation of the Nigerian College of Aviation and Technology (NCAT) Zaria, who paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
The delegation’s visitation was done on account of enlightenment to the NCPC on the need to start a specialised training at the college.
The Executive Secretary expressed concern over the safety, convenience and comfort of Nigerian pilgrims airborne to perform religious rites in Israel and others countries.
“We want to see Nigerians treated better, flown abroad with better aircraft, with all the requirements in them, with the conveniences intact and with the comfort that they need.
“The Aviation Industry is supposed to be fitted with a detailed kind of provision for everything.
“We want to stop the manner in which Nigerians are flown with not so proper aircraft and not so properly managed in the flight and not treated well especially in terms of their luggage.
“We believe that by partnering with them we will get additional information, additional education and some training to be technically alive to making things work for Nigerians,’’ he said.
Uja also called on the government to float a National Carrier, saying the idea would go a long way to strengthen the nation’s economy and generate immense revenue for the country.
“This country needs to have a national carrier and the time is now. It is not right that a great nation such as Nigeria does not have a national carrier.Nigeria ought to make money from the aviation industry globally.
“This country needs to financially and materially strengthen the indigenous airlines so that they will be globally competitive not just operating from Lagos to Abuja, Abuja to Port Harcourt.
“I don’t think our airports are close to the best in the world and we have the capacity to make our airport the best. We have the land, manpower and finances,’’ Uja said.
Earlier, the Rector of the College, Abdulsalami Mohammed, who was represented by Jim Hassan, explained that the visitation was aimed at enlightening the staff of the commission on how to facilitate activities within the airport.
Mohammed expressed optimism that NCPC and NCAT would partner and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as the two organisations would benefit positively from each other.
“We offer specialised training in aviation and we have realised the importance of this organisation in the lives of people.
“Aviation being a specialised sector, we want to partner, train and enlighten the staff of this commission how to facilitate activities around the airports.
“I am hoping there will be a great collaboration that would be mutually beneficial to both our college and the NCPC.
“We are going to do a training analysis whereby we will see what the commission does and then we could tweak our own training to suit the organisation needs,’’ he said
