NIGERIAN CAA: CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION

The case of the company BAZE RESEARCH AND DATA SERVICES from Nigeria began quite ordinary. Everything indicated that another crook wanted to “leave the restaurant without paying the bill.” Even the fact that this crook turned out to be a fairly well-known businessman and politician in Nigeria Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed did not play any role - our registry is full of such high-ranking defaulters or outright scammers. For some reason, they believe that their financial situation and high social status in their own countries should somehow faze us and make us shut up. But, as you know, all this “mumbo jumbo” does not bother us at all.

Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed. Photo: https://www.thosewhoinspire.com/meet-the-ip/senator-yusuf-datti-baba-ahmed/

However, the investigation of this case by BLACKLIST.AERO revealed much more serious violations, and even, without any exaggeration, crimes that were committed and are still being covered up by officials of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. Also, the BLACKLIST.AERO administration learned from its own experience what the words of the Honorable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development FESTUS KEYAMO, that he came to this ministry in order to fight corruption in Nigerian aviation, are worth. Spoiler: all these beautiful words turned out to be pure crap. But first things first.

The situation seemed quite ordinary: Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed instructed JET AGENT (UK) (published with the permission of the claimant), which subsequently declared the case in BLACKLIST.AERO, to sell his Learjet aircraft with the registration number 5N-BLW. A corresponding exclusive contract was concluded. After which the agent company invested its own money in presenting the aircraft to potential buyers, paying for advertising in specialized media. And in the end, they found a buyer for this aircraft in Mexico. 

After the corresponding KYC check, which was carried out by the company acting as an escrow agent, the buyer made a cash deposit into the account of this escrow agent. Everything was ready to close the deal. And at that very moment 5N-BLW... flies back to Africa and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed stops communicating. What happened?

The second case, filed by the same company against the same BAZE RESEARCH AND DATA SERVICES, helped us lift the veil of secrecy. In it, the claimant reported that Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed signed another contract. And in this contract, he instructed the JET AGENT company to restore the technical records of the 5N-BLW aircraft, which were supposedly “lost”.

And when the BLACKLIST.AERO administration dug a little deeper in this direction, a much more interesting picture was revealed to us. Which subsequently showed how corrupt the Nigerian aviation authorities are and how they cover for their “clients” who have money and power.

The first thing that was found out was the circumstances of the “loss” of the technical records. In fact, no one lost them. It’s just that after one of the technical services, 5N-BLW flew away without paying the cost of the service. And this was not the first time that the owner of this aircraft did something like this. We managed to find out at least one more case of non-payment for maintenance in Europe. After each such case, the aircraft went through the procedure of “technical sale”. But in fact, it was being transferred from one company owned by Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed to another.

Well, 5N-BLW flew away so hastily that the technical records remained with the maintenance organization. They had long hoped that when the operator needed these records to extend the Certificate of Airworthiness, the client who “slipped out of the restaurant without paying for lunch” would return and be forced to pay the bills. But he disappeared without a trace, as if the aircraft did not need to operate at all. However, 5N-BLW operated as if nothing had happened! But how?!

Well, everything turned out to be painfully simple. As BLACKLIST.AERO found out, for several years the aircraft belonging to Datti Baba-Ahmed was operating with a fake Certificate of Airworthiness issued by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. It was issued without actually checking the documents that the operator must present to the inspection body. Was it negligence or corruption? We tried to figure it out and sent an official letter with all the details regarding the incident to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority directly to its Director Cpt. CHRIS NAJOMO.

The Director General of the NCAA, Capt. Chris Najomo. Photo: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7355715357329809408/ 

In response, we received total silence for several months. All our numerous attempts to convey clearly structured facts, documents, evidence to the person who is directly responsible not only for aviation safety in Nigeria, but also responsible for possible incidents due to technical reasons with Nigerian air carriers around the world, were unsuccessful.

Then, having studied the Nigerian system of power, we approached the Honorable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development FESTUS KEYAMO, also sending better part of the information available. Why part? We have to keep some “tricks up our sleeve” in case the situation requires court proceedings. However, what we have provided is more than enough for a full-fledged investigation and clearly shows that in the absence of technical records, 5N-BLW could not have received a real new Airworthiness Certificate without negligence or corruption in the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority.

In addition to the violation described above, we have collected many other facts for which the operator, in an objective investigation, could have had its AOC revoked. Well, for example, take systematic flights with the transponder turned off. But who cares about such “trifles”, right?

Frankly speaking, we had special hopes for Festus Keyamo, since he came to the post of minister, at first glance, as they say, “as a man of the people” A lawyer, human rights activist, public figure, who had previously long criticized corruption in the government bodies of Nigeria. He publicly stated that he was running for the post of Minister of Aviation “to defeat corruption.” That is, in his person we were supposed to find an absolute like-minded person!

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo. Photo: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/janet-oputa-5b99832b9_4thafricanairforceforum-aviation-airforceaviationpartnership-activity-7332031746571390976-F8Nx?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAA7Mn04B0S--FcYkdnF4yt3x3P12Sph5uoY

However, as often happens, either the image of a “human rights activist” was just a mask to penetrate the high corridors of power and latch onto the federal teat. Or power and money corrupt anyone, I don’t know.

Only after BLACKLIST.AERO began to gradually publicize this situation, all the characters in this story stirred and decided to play a real comedy. At first, the culprit of this whole story, the owner of the 5N-BLW aircraft Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed wrote a letter to the Minister FESTUS KEYAMO in which he stated that all the facts about the non-payment of his company BAZE RESEARCH AND DATA SERVICES are slander, and the claimant in the person of the director of the company JET AGENT Anatoly Parkhomchuk, in general, according to Baba-Ahmed, is a co-owner of BLACKLIST.AERO. At the same time, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed did not say a word about the situation with the supposedly lost technical records and flights with a fake Airworthiness certificate.

Apparently, Baba-Ahmed decided to make such a statement by distorting the old news that the company JET AGENT, along with three dozen other companies, joined the THREE CASES DECLARATION two years ago. Of course, I personally, on behalf of BLACKLIST.AERO, wrote a letter to Minister Festus Keyamo, in which I refuted the false claims that Anatoly Parkhomchuk is a co-owner of BLACKLIST.AERO. Even a schoolchild can easily check the ownership structure of BLACKLIST.AERO and verify the veracity of my words.

However, as it turned out, the introduction of false information was extremely important for the Nigerian bosses for the next step. Since their next step was a letter from Minister Festus Keyamo to Anatoly Parkhomchuk, as a “co-owner of BLACKLIST.AERO”, demanding that he fly to Nigeria for further investigation. That is, despite all the explanations and easily exposed lies from the lips of Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, Minister Keyamo accepted his interpretation of events. Precisely in order to “invite” the initiator of the case to Nigeria.

Well, the desire to lure the claimant to Nigeria is quite understandable. There, it will be very easy for these gentlemen to put pressure on him. For example, to put him in prison on a trumped-up charge, and then make him an “offer that is impossible to refuse.” Or simply “forget” him in that very prison. If you read my other article about the ARIK AIR case, where I describe a picture of total lawlessness reigning in Nigeria, when local Nigerian lawyers, despite all the obviousness of the case, are simply afraid to sue a state company and refuse to cooperate with dozens of former Arik Air employees from different countries as plaintiffs, then you will understand that talks about a possible danger for the claimant in Nigeria is not far-fetched at all.

In addition, by a strange coincidence, immediately after Anatoly Parkhomchuk filed a case with BLACKLIST.AERO, “clients” from Nigeria started knocking on the door of JET AGENT, expressing a wild desire to cooperate with JET AGENT. They were pushing for a meeting. But as soon as the meeting was scheduled in the controlled area of Biggin Hill Airport, where JET AGENT has an office, and the “clients’” documents were requested to arrange the meeting for the issuance of passes, then all sorts of collisions began to occur, and the “clients’” fire in the belly quickly dimmed.

However, the BLACKLIST.AERO administration was able to identify one of these “clients”. This person turned out to be one of the business partners of none other than Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed. This person told our claimant about the enormous prospects that were opening up for him in terms of selling business jets of Nigerian owners. He tried by all means to interest in a trip to Nigeria. However, he disappeared very quickly as soon as he realized that his identity was being checked.

And now it turns out that the government official is playing along with the fraudster, effectively becoming an accomplice in his next criminal plan. In this way, he is trying not only to help the influential local politician and businessman, but also to cover-up the crime of his subordinates from the Nigerian CAA - the forgery of the Certificate of Conformity for 5N-BLW.

Everyone understands perfectly well that with the documentary evidence provided by BLACKLIST.AERO, the investigation could essentially have been started immediately. However, this whole theatrical performance with luring the claimant to Nigeria in various ways was aimed precisely at preventing any investigation. He was supposed to simply disappear there.

For several months now, we at BLACKLIST.AERO have been tracking all the activities of both the head of the Nigerian CAA Cpt. CHRIS NAJOMO and the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development FESTUS KEYAMO. If you subscribe to their pages on social networks, you will see that the press services of both aviation figures work harder than the press service of the White House. What it there to say about the press service of the President of Nigeria. If you count the number of advisers to the minister and the number of people in their press services, it becomes clear that the Nigerian government is simply wasting public money to create a “good face for a bad game” for certain people. If you read all the news published by the press services of Najomo and Keyamo, you get the feeling that God has made an invaluable gift to the Nigerian people by sending these two virtuous individuals to earth.

Every day, this army of PR people releases a huge number of news reports with an abundance of photographs of their bosses, extolling their virtues. If they run out of news items, they can simply publish a portrait of their boss without any apparent reason. Apparently, they were given an order on how many times a day the photographs of these two officials should appear on social networks.

This is no longer PR, this is the real creation of a personality cult. It seems that the main pleasure in life for both of them is self-admiration. Although I am more inclined to believe that in addition to satisfying their own ego and self-admiration, both of these officials have much more ambitious plans in the political arena in the future.

And there is also a strong feeling that in Nigeria, the aviation has been given over to these two people by some internal agreements. As a result of these agreements, they have effectively created a “state within a state” and feel like local potentates. They clearly feel their complete impunity. Not understanding or not taking into account that such cases cast a huge shadow on the country’s reputation, at least in the aviation industry.

As for the initiator of all these criminal schemes, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, everything is even more interesting here. While we have been consistently working on this case for the past few months, news suddenly appeared in the Nigerian media that this former senator and vice-presidential candidate in the last elections of 2023 is going to go even further in the future. Namely, he intends to run for the presidency of Nigeria in 2027. His chances, however, are absolutely minuscule, even Chat GPT will tell you that.

Of course, I understand that now Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed will declare everywhere that this article is an attack by his political opponents or some other enemies inside Nigeria. We will see accusations that BLACKLIST.AERO works for some groups (political, financial, criminal, etc.) in Nigeria in order to reduce the chances of the hero of our article to be elected president. And a lot more crap.

We have already gone through this with the now former Philippine congressman Dan Fernandez, who perfectly combined his political activities with unsuccessful attempts to run the aviation business. When the truth came out about how he leased a B777 cargo aircraft and stopped paying for it because the aircraft could not fly the way he wanted and contrary to the aviation regulations of different countries, what kind of performances did not this former soap opera actor put on, just recall!

Then Danylo Fernandez not only called a press conference in parliament, where he declared that BLACKLIST.AERO are “pro-Russian extortionists” hired by some representatives of the Philippine gambling industry, whom he is fighting, but also held a hearing in Congress, to which he invited a Filipino journalist who wrote a news story in Billionare about the accusations made against Dan Fernandez in my article. There he made a real circus, not allowing the journalist to say a word in response to his tirades. He really wanted to arrange this theatrical dressing down of the journalist for the public, since the meeting was broadcast live.

But you know, all these theatrical performances did not help Dan Fernandez to be re-elected either to Congress or to local government bodies. Apparently, the audience is tired of his acting. However, the accusations from BLACKLIST.AERO of creating debts in the aviation market and illegal entrepreneurship (combining business activities with work in parliament) did not and will not disappear anywhere. He will have to answer for his actions sooner or later in the future.

Of course, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed will also not give up theatrical performances and will start singing the old song about political persecutors and the like. But we BLACKLIST.AERO absolutely do not care about the political processes in Nigeria, nor about any attempts to sling mud at us and fabricate any accusations. We will do our job and pursue defaulters and fraudsters in aviation by public and paralegal methods no matter what.

In the dry residue, today we have the following picture:

1. A well-known businessman and politician in Nigeria was publicly caught repeatedly evading payment for technical services for his aircraft. He flew away without paying and re-registered the aircraft from one company to another.

2. All these fraudulent actions led to the fact that he needed to commit an even more criminal act - to corrupt officials in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority so that they would issue an updated Certificate of Airworthiness without the documents required for such procedures

3. The management of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, in an attempt to hide the fact of corruption, either ignores all attempts to achieve a transparent and official investigation of what happened, or helps the main defendant to lure the applicant of the case against BAZE RESEARCH AND DATA SERVICES to Nigeria in order to shut his mouth for a long time or forever.

In this regard, I can say the following: the administration and editorial board of BLACKLIST.AERO have repeatedly encountered the fact that the CAA in some countries deliberately turn a blind eye to outright fraudulent schemes on the part of companies whose activities they are obliged to control. We can discuss how to characterize examples of their inaction - negligence or outright corruption.

But the actions of the Nigerian CAA under the leadership of Cpt. Najomo and Minister Keyamo have outdone all the corrupt officials in aviation that we have encountered so far. It is no secret that officials often dance to the tune of fraudulent oligarchs. But the facts when officials become accomplices to a criminal offense, as a result of which people may ultimately die (and we consider situations with fake aircraft certificates as seriously as the facts with fake aircraft parts) go beyond all bounds.

The fact that such officials, instead of correcting the situation, are trying to erase traces of their crime by attempting to commit an even greater crime (against life or freedom of a person) in our opinion casts a shadow on the entire system of power in Nigeria. And until a transparent and public investigation is conducted into the facts set out in this article, for BLACKLIST.AERO the whole of Nigeria, in terms of aviation development, is a “failed state”.

Artem Degtiarov, Chief editor at BLACKLIST.AERO