Nigeria denies agreement with Virgin Airlines on use of international terminals
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Aug 18, 2008, 11:02

Nigeria has denied entering into any agreement with the management of Virgin Nigeria, a domestic airline operator, which permits the airline to use the international terminals at the Murtala Mohammed and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airports in Lagos and Abuja respectively, for its domestic operations.

Clarifying the Government’s position on Sunday August 17, Presidential spokesman, Mr Olusegun Adeniyi said there was nothing in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both parties indicating such authorisation.

The clarification became imperative following a negative media campaign launched by the international businessman and owner of the Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Mr Richard Branson that Nigeria reneged on an earlier agreement signed between his organisation and the previous government after Nigerian aviation authorities had ordered Virgin Nigeria to cease domestic operations from the international terminals of the two major airports.
Mr Adeniyi said the memorandum titled “Memorandum of Mutual Undertaking on the Establishment of a Flag Carrier between the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Virgin Atlantic Limited/Virgin Airways Limited,” did not show any clause to suggest the granting of that exclusive right to Virgin adding that Virgin Airlines was basing its claim on a personal letter written by its Chairman Richard Branson to the then Minister of Aviation Isa Yuguda in which Branson made 10 demands.
One of these demands was “the airline will be allowed to use the relevant international terminals in Nigerian airports (including Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja) for all the airlines operations, including both international and domestic services subject to compliance with ICAO’s standard and recommended practices on Aviation security.”
According to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Communications, “Yuguda, unfortunately endorsed the letter but the pertinent question is: should a letter written by Sir Branson on Virgin Atlantic letter head be binding on our country even if the minister endorsed it? Why was the issue not part of the memorandum of undertaking signed by all the parties? Is that the way business transactions are conducted with nations; that a company chief executive would, after publicly signing a memorandum of undertaking with the government, now write a personal letter on his company’s letter head and expect any self-respecting nation to take that as a binding contract just because he got somebody to append his signature to it?”
He described Yuguda’s action as one of the many “illegally-binding contracts” with multinationals that were hurriedly signed by public officials in the past without putting national interest into consideration saying the Yar’Adua government was determined to change agreements that were detrimental to national interest.
“One major challenge for this administration is the fact that over the years, public officials hardly bothered about the interest of our people when entering into contracts and agreements on behalf of the Federal Government. That is why our oil industry remains what it is today since most of the contracts were written by the multinational oil companies to the detriment of the nation and our officials merely signed. But with President Yar’Adua, many things are going to change and he will use the law as his weapon,” he said.
He said that even on security ground, the government has the exclusive right to order Virgin out of the international terminal.
“There is also security issue involved in the whole debate which means that even if Virgin has a valid claim, which as it were it doesn’t have, they can still be told to leave the international wing on grounds of security. Because one of the undertakings signed by Virgin Airlines is that it would not do or permit to be done anything which would violate Nigerian laws and regulations, including laws and regulations relating to matters of strategic security and economic interest of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
The Presidential spokesman urged Mr Branson to desist from media propaganda against Nigeria.

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