Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has approved the appointment of Sen. Hadi Sirika, the former Minister of Aviation, as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Umaru Musa Yar’adua University (UMYU), Katsina.
Sirika’s appointment was contained in a statement issued by Mr Ibrahim Almu-Gafai, the Director, Press, Office of the Secretary to the State Government.
He said that the appointment, which was for the first year of tenure, took effect in October 2025.
Almu-Gafai quoted the Secretary to the State Government, Abdullahi Garba-Faskari, as saying that Sirika’s appointment was based on the recognition of his outstanding qualities and performance exhibited over the years.
Recall that in May 2023, the hopes of many Nigerians were dashed a few hours after Sirika, a nephew of late Muhammadu Buhari, made a static display of what was supposed to be the resurrected Nigerian carrier, Nigeria Air.
A few hours after Nigerians had celebrated the arrival of the aircraft, videos, evidence, and pictures started to trickle in showing that the said aircraft used for the static display was ‘borrowed’ from Ethiopian Airlines.
Nigerians who were taken aback at this display of what they described as ‘fraud’ wondered why a government would go as far as deceiving its own citizens of floating a non-existent airline.
Findings show that the former minister of Aviation had contacted Ethiopian Airlines a few days before the handover, to provide an aircraft that would be presented to Nigerians as an aircraft belonging to Nigeria Air.
Ethiopian Airlines had obliged by repainting and rebranding one of its Boeing 737-860 Max aircraft.
Investigations show that the Boeing 737-800 aircraft has registration Number ET-APL, Mode S Q4005C and serial number: 40965/4075.
Two days after the static display, flight live tracker ‘flightrader24.com’ showed the Nigerian aircraft was back in Ethiopia, where it was brought in from.
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