Juliet Damilola
The Commissioner of Accident Investigation Bureau in Nigeria (AIB-Nigeria), Akin Olateru, has said AIB-Nigeria would assist its new counterpart in Ghana to acquire relevant knowledge in accident investigation.
Olateru made this known on Tuesday in Abuja after a four-man team from Ghana inspected AIB-Nigeria facilities on a fact-finding mission.
He noted that such technical know-how that the AIB-Nigeria set to offer a year-old Accident Investigation Bureau in Ghana (AIB-Ghana) would greatly advance its effectiveness and efficiency.
“What we have today is a fact-finding mission. AIB-Ghana is new and they want to learn from Nigeria. They want to learn from our mistakes and from the things we’ve done very well.
“They came to inspect our facilities and what we have done so far to take them round to also inspect our equipment. They have met with a lot of our investigators and almost all the heads of units,” he said.
Olateru stated that the team had gone through some of AIB-Nigeria documentations and regulation among others.
According to him, the visit is an attestation to the fact that AIB-Nigeria staff are doing something right.
“This is not the first nation to call on us for assistance. We have had such calls from the Republic of Benin, which has ceded all their investigation to AIB-Nigeria.”
“Human capital development is critical and this is a basic area that AIB-Nigeria will be very useful to Ghana. Nigeria’s safety lab will be used to assist the neighboring nations till they can fund theirs,” he said.
Earlier, AIB-Ghana Commissioner, Akwesi Prempeh, who led the Ghanaian team to Nigeria, said the objective of the visit was to acquire knowledge on key policies, regulations, procedures and structure of the Nigerian bureau.
Prempeh said Ghana is ready to learn from Nigerians on investigation regarding accidents and incidents in aviation industry.
“We have the opportunity to visit your safety laboratory, training centre, command and control centre, and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
“Apart from that, we are looking for how to finance our bureau because it is a new establishment. We are also requesting more in the areas of technical assistance, institutional development, equipment, and logistics,” he added.