In addition to having roughly 15 planes delayed abroad, Air Peace's chairman, Barr. Allen Onyema, said Wednesday that the airline had about $14 million stuck in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Onyema lamented the ease of doing business in Nigeria in a speech he gave at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Annual Conference, stating local investors encounter several legislative impediments that limit their progress.
How can your economy expand while domestic investments are overtaxed? People in the community can find employment thanks to these investments. How do you develop your economy when those in authority view you as an adversary or a competition because they are blinded by their beliefs, which makes doing business challenging?The Central Bank of Nigeria is holding roughly 14 million USD that belong to Air Peace. It is not obscured. About 15 of our planes are also stuck abroad. People would then claim that Nigerian airlines are undercapitalized. They do not lack capability; rather, what they lack is open government assistance and business-friendly regulations.
Do you realize how much money our nation spends through its airlines on airplane maintenance? In 2022, Air Peace alone spent 78 billion naira on maintenance, with the money going to other nations. How are local investments expanding at this rate? The head of Air Peace continued by recalling how, after paying over 100 million naira to FAAN to lease property at the Lagos Airport, he filed to run a maintenance hangar in 2015, but noted that Air Peace has still not received the site even eight years later.