…As 3 investors begin talks with AMCON to acquire Aero Contractors***
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commissioner, Prof Mahmod Yakubu, says there is no possibility that the 2019
general elections will be postponed.
Yakubu said this in an interview on Osasu Show posted
on the show’s You Tube Channel.
He said, “I cannot see any possibility of a postponement. We
started this a long time ago; we have gone ahead with preparations. INEC is not
even contemplating the possibility of a postponement.”
He said the commission had contacted the
National Youth Service Corps to release corps members for elections.
Yakubu added, “We are liaising with the NYSC for ad hoc
workers to be used for the elections, and where there are shortfalls, the
commission has a very clear policy: we will make up the difference by using
students of federal tertiary institutions.
“Unless the number is exhausted and there is still a
shortfall, we will then go to the state tertiary institutions.”
He said the commission had replaced over
62,000 ballot boxes, which were either damaged or destroyed.
Yakubu also said the electoral body had procured
an additional 200,000 ballot boxes for the presidential election.
He said, “We needed to replace 27,000 smart card readers
after the stress tests on the ones used in the 2015 general elections. We have
changed the batteries, the SIM cards and the memory cards.”
Yakubu said the introduction of technology had made it
impossible for any party to win an election by a wide margin.
He said the Permanent Voter Cards and the smart card readers
had been able to tackle ballot rigging, hence the Ekiti and Osun
governorship polls last year were tightly contested.
The INEC boss said, “Between 2015 and November 2018,
we conducted elections in 195 constituencies, the largest number of
offseason elections.
“The turnout varied from a little over 50 per cent in
Katsina to as low as 2.9 per cent in Ifako/Ijaye in Lagos and 3.4 per cent in
Eti Osa state constituency in Lagos.
“I think because elections in Nigeria have
progressively and incrementally improved, there is no possibility now that you
will have the kind of margins that we used to experience in our elections
before the introduction of technology, basically the PVC and the smart card
reader.
“The elections in terms of outcomes and votes are
becoming more international. You can see the outcomes of the elections are
becoming more and more competitive and closer to the kind of results we see
even in advanced democracies.”
Yakubu said the commission was ready for the general
elections.
In the meantime, three investors are in talks with the Asset
Management Corporation of Nigeria to acquire Aero Contractor, our correspondent
has learnt.
It was gathered that the airline had attracted 19 investors
since it was acquired in 2016 and the number had been narrowed down to six and
later three.
An industry source said on Sunday that the investors had met
with the AMCON on the possibility of acquiring the airline.
The Managing Director of Aero Contractors, Capt. Ado Sanusi,
who confirmed the information, said the investors were looking at all the
assets of the airline including its maintenance, repair and overhaul facility.
“There are so many investors that have come forward. They
are looking at all the core assets,” he said.
The source, however, stated that the contrary had been the case
with Arik Air, which was taken over by AMCON in 2017.
According to the source, Arik has not attracted any known
investors except a Chinese company that indicated interest in March 2017, one
month after the airline went into receivership.
The Chinese firm was said to have commenced talks with the
former management of the airline, but had to allegedly withdraw when it learnt
of the airline’s debt profile.
It was gathered that the Chinese investors went ahead to
invest in African World Airlines, a Ghana-based airline.
“Since AMCON took over Arik Air in 2017, only Chinese
investors indicated interest in the airline and that was one month after the
government agency took over. It will be difficult to sell Arik because of the
heavy debt burden and the ownership structure,” the source said.
“But, it is not the same with Aero where 19 investors
indicated interest and these have been reviewed down to six and recently to
three. Those Chinese investors that initially indicated interest in Arik Air
have invested in AWA and they aim to take over the West African market with
time,” the source added.
An aviation expert and the Chief Executive Officer of
Selective Securities International Limited, Mr Ayo Obilana, said that the lack
of transparency, due diligence and policy summersaults on the part of the
government would make it difficult for the nation’s aviation industry to
attract willing investors.
Obilana said the government needed to show sincerity of
purpose as well as consistency in its policies to change the poor perception
that investors had.
“In Nigeria, government policies change and because of this, a lot of people are very reluctant to put their money in such an economy,” he said.
Punch