Politics

Former aviation ministers arrested.

02 Jul, 2008

Two former aviation ministers, Femi Fani-Kayode and Babalola Borishade, have been arrested as art of an investigation into the presumed misappropriation of a N19.5 billion fund set up by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to improve aviation safety in the country.

The probe centres around the alleged inflation of an airport radar upgrade project which was originally valued at 6.5 billion naira but is actually thought to be worth less than a third of this amount. An Austrian aviation contractor based in Nigeria and the former managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency have also been arrested over the affair.

Hundreds of people have died in Nigeria in a string of air crashes in recent years, which have been blamed on a combination of aging aircraft and poor navigational, surveillance and communication equipment.

The aviation safety fund probe is one of a series of investigations ordered by president Umaru Yar