Kaduna State: Cabinet okays N2.3 billion for local assembly of Aircraft

The Nigerian government on Wednesday approved the sum of N2.3 billion to commence the local assembly of Magnus Centennial Aircraft at Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, stated this while briefing State House correspondents after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to Sirika, the approval signals developments in the Nigerian aviation industry that would progress into local manufacturing of aircraft.

“I am happy to announce today is the reality; we will indeed assemble the Magnus aircraft and will continue to do so and not too distant future by God’s grace, the industry of civil aviation will begin to manufacture right here in the country aircraft.

“But we will begin by assembling these training aircraft and it will happen very soon.

“So, the memorandum has been passed in council; the manufacturer of the airplane is based in Hungary, and has local company called Ingenious to be done in Zaria.

“And the total contract sum is N2.3 billion;  the completion period of 18 months.’’

He said that the world of civil aviation stopped in its training programme,  the spin and spin recovery.

According to him, it is an unusual altitude that our club go through. And therefore students are taught to identify when they get into spin situation, and how to recover out of the situation before it becomes a disaster.

“We were all trained like that as pilots; but because airplanes become more and more technologically advanced, the need for spin and spin recovery didn’t arise, because they are becoming more and more sophisticated. But again, the world realized  that we still get into spin or there is a need for this skill to be developed for recovery out of spin situation.

“So most of manufacturers stopped producing trainers for that purpose. And so there are not many people now that do that manufacture.

“And the company in Messrs Magnus, realised that gap started to produce airplanes that can get into spin and out of it, so that students can be trained on that. And because of our maximum attention to safety, we believe that this should come back into training in Nigeria, even the U.S. who, at some point stopped, now has ccome back to training students on this spinner spin recovery.

“So this airplane is fully aerobotic, goes into aerobatics. And I think the Nigerian Air Force and the Air Force around the region will be interested and excited by this development, we are taking the lead in civil aviation.

“It is our intention to produce them here, assemble them here in policy when in the future, you know, sell them out to where we’re interested around the world.

“So this will happen and I think the first one or two aircraft will happen, the assemblage here in Nigeria and to fly them within the remaining four months that we have as a government.

“So it’s another item that is ticked on our plate, and to which we remain grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari and his government.”

Sirika says he also presented another memo seeking approval for the revised estimated total cost and augmentation of the contract for procurement of the Instrument Landing System at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano and the Katsina Airport.

PIAK