Date: 2021-03-26

The Chairman of the Governing Council of International Aviation College, Ilorin, Alh Ahmed Yusuf-Gobir, has said that the college has put in place measures to promote the local content initiative of the federal government in the training of pilots in order to conserve foreign exchange for the country.

The retired captain who stated this while speaking in an interview with Vanguard at the inauguration of the members of the college governing council in Ilorin said that the aviation school has graduated 252 pilots since about 10 years ago when it was created.

Gobir, who said that before now, about 95 per cent of pilots who are of Nigerian nationality were trained outside the country, said the College has begun to complement the efforts of the federal government owned Aviation College in addressing the shortages of pilots in the country as many of its products are now gainfully employed across the operating airlines in the country.

He also regretted the death of the pilot in the recent aircrash in Abuja who was a graduate of the Aviation College, saying, "The pilot that died in the last unfortunate aircrash was a graduate of this school. For us, it's a big loss because he was a brilliant student when he was here."

Gobir also said that the Aviation College has overcome its various challenges as a result of the ingenuity of Governor AbdulRazaq stressing that there is now peaceful environment in the institution, as various posts have been filled by experienced hands, and there is now template for expansion of the college and regular payment of salaries.

He said, "I was appointed as sole appointee on 17th 2020, then, it was a deliberate excercise by the governor to carry out the excercise. I noticed that there were problems of staff disenchantment, so, I tried and bring the management and staff together, and also encourage them to have a union that would be defending and presenting their needs. So we now have grounds for peaceful environment.

"The situation today in the college is that of stability, all the positions that needed to be filled have been filled with very experienced people.

"Our procurement officer is what obtained in any international standard organisation, so is our bursar, who is very experienced.

"Now, we are no more owing salaries, we have worked that one out. We are now getting subvention from the state government on a monthly basis. The state government pays about 80 per cent of the salaries, while the remaining comes from our IGR.

"The state government has ensured that there can never be a situation whereby the staff will be agitating for salary payments again like it used to happen before the present administration came on board and the school lost its license. We have since recovered the license and the college is back on the track."

He further said that by May 2021 the college would boast of 5 aircrafts altogether, while private investors would be engaged to increase the IGR of the college.

"Right now, we have three functional aircrafts, we have the fourth one coming up, we are expecting the engine to arrive.

We had a meeting with the governor, recently where he also promised us another aircraft.

So our prayer is that between now and end of May we should have five aircrafts in the college.

"Here, the state government is doing a lot, we have been encouraged to go into partnership with people in the private sector. We are about to start building a new hostel, we are going to have ten rooms like hotel accommodation within the college.

"It was very competitive, their presentation was brilliant and they are very experienced, the investors are coming from Lagos. it is presently with the government to give them the approval.

"After the approval, we might start the construction around May. There are lots of things we are looking forward to," he said. Gobir, however, noted that the main challenge of the Aviation College is funding and its inability to increase its tuition fee of N12.5m for a Pilot course of 18 months and not review downward since 10 years ago when the college was established.

He said, "Our challenges are basically about funding, our ability to do more for the college has reduced over the time because we couldn't increase the school fees and we don't have any support from the federal government.

"To be honest with you, the fee cannot come down. The fee has been the same for the past nine years, and you as well as I know that nine, 10 years ago, our dollar was going for 200 or something, today it is over 400 so it is twice as high and the parts that we buy do not change and we buy all our parts in dollars. Including the tyres, about twenty of them we are getting from Lagos today, they insisted that we pay them in dollars.

"The reason is that if we pay them in Naira today and the dollar increases in the next minute, they bear the consequence because they also buy in dollars.

So, the issue of reducing the school fees doesn't happen at all,what we have been trying to resist is the urge to increase the school fees. We have every justification to increase it, but we cannot, infact, the parts are twice now unlike the price we used to buy them and that is why the state government has come in to say that it would take over payment of salaries, by giving us monthly subvention."

He also said that Kwara State has gained tremendously from the Aviation College as many indigenes have been trained as pilots thereby bringing prosperity to the state both now and future.

His words, "Kwara has gained a lot. Several people who are indigenes of the state have been trained by this institution within the aviation industry. We have graduated pilots, for courses that cost as much as N12.5m, that is what it cost to train an airline pilot in this institution today.

"From entry to graduation, the fee is N12.5m and we just recently graduated one airline pilot, Ajape who is actually one of our operations officers here.He was given a scholarship by the college and he has graduated,he now has that license.

"But of course,we don't just give them the license, we bond him so that he's now going to work with the college for a minimum of five years.You can't go elsewhere because of the investment the college has made on them.So,we have him and others who are indigenes from different parts of the state.

"One is from the palace, Magaji Ngeri son, and others. They are at private pilot levels, they haven't gone far."

He also noted that because of the huge cost of the tuition fee, "we cannot put too many indigenes on scholarship because if you are training them, you are training them from the money of other students. It has to be well managed otherwise we run into a situation where we are exhausting other peoples money and it doesn't balance out."

He also said that presently the college has over 50 students from all over the country and the management is pushing for a sponsorship of one student per local government across the 16 councils to be executed by the state government in order to increase its financial base.

He said: "Our recommendation is this, like the past government that every local government must sponsor one student, we are going to push for that.If they do that, like we are trying to build capacity for Kwara indigenes within the aviation industry will be quickly achieved. If its one student per local government in every two years because it is about 18 months course, it is a huge achievement. It's the state government that can mandate the local government, if they are mandated, they will do it. If we are getting 16 students from the local governments in say about two years, it will surely increase the IGR of the college."

Gobir also said that in order to get funding from the federal government, the college has commenced plans to establish engineering school.

He said, "Federal government will not support us because we are state owned institution. The only thing we are looking at is within our projection for the future, is the establishment of Engineering school for Aviation,its going to be a college separate from the flying. "Now, when that is established, the blueprint and the business plan have been prepared and we soon forward them to the state government for approval.