By the end of August 2023, the International Civil Aviation Organization is expected to conduct a thorough safety audit of the nation’s civil aviation system, according to the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau.
At the Peer Review exercise of the Banjul Accord Group Accident Investigation Agency’s closing ceremony on Friday in Abuja, Director General of NSIB Akin Olateru made this declaration.
The NSIB director believes that the upcoming ICAO audit will be crucial because it will shed light on the safety status of Nigeria’s aviation industry.
The findings of the audit, he continued, would help identify areas that needed further development and facilitate the implementation of practical steps to promote safer skies.
Olateru continued by saying that Nigeria has one of the top safety records.
“At the end of this month, Nigeria will have its audit, and our scorecard will be revealed, he said. Since there are many different ways to measure safety, all I can say is that Nigeria as a nation has one of the best records.
“It is measured by the quantity of mishaps, the quantity of fatal mishaps, and the quantity of grave incidences and occurrences. The better you are, the fewer occurrences you have.
“There are some airlines in the world that have never recorded fatal crash and they have been around for over 100 years, so that is an indicator of safety.
“Only an ICAO audit can provide information about a nation’s safety record. We are conducting our own audit in August because that is the only way to evaluate any nation. The public will then be able to judge our performance regarding safety once the report is released.
Olateru emphasized the value of the review exercise by saying that it would help investigators train others and increase safety throughout the area.
The BAGAIA Commissioner, Charles Erhueh, shared some significant findings from a review conducted by BAGAIA and commended the aviation authorities for their processes, infrastructure, and human resources in general. He did, however, stress the importance of better processes documentation.
Following a thorough evaluation of the operations, Erhueh emphasized the value of having well-documented processes, adding that this documentation would guarantee the efficient continuation of tasks even when new team members were added.
“They were able to explain the procedure to us, and while we recognize that it is a good procedure, it must be presented in black and white. The only discovery is that it has been properly documented, but they are progressing well.
Despite this issue with the documentation, Erhueh praised the aviation authorities’ overall performance. He ranked Nigeria as the top performer in the area, out of the seven nations that make up the Banjul Accord Group. These nations include Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Ghana, Liberia, Guinea, the Gambia, and, of course, Nigeria. Nigeria demonstrated excellent practices and capabilities, standing out as one of the best countries in the world for air accident investigation.
