The spat between the Emir of Kano and Air Peace erupted again yesterday, with Isa Bayero, the Emir of Kano’s cousin, setting the airline a 72-hour deadline to apologize for allegedly ‘disrespecting’ the monarch and delaying his departure.
Bayero had sent a letter to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) requesting that Air Peace Airline be punished for “disrespect to the emir and the people of Kano State,” as he put it.
However, Air Peace responded, claiming that it did not offend the Emir of Kano as the petition claimed.
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Toyin Olajide, the airline’s Chief Operating Officer, stated that Air Peace respects the Emir of Kano in the utmost esteem, and that, contrary to the implication that the emir was insulted, the airline actually safeguarded the emir’s image “by not submitting to what Isa Bayero asked us to do.”
“I am issuing an ultimatum of 72 hours for Air Peace to make an apology to the emir, first in a national daily and secondly to come down in person to the emir,” Bayero, the Emir’s chief protocol officer, stated recently.
We would go to great lengths to remedy the ‘abnormality.’
“The action of Air Peace is sentimental and unprofessional and we can go any length to defend and protect any act of insensitivity against our prestigious traditional institution.
“That insult is not heaped on the emir alone but on the good people of Kano and folding our hands on this could trigger something worse and more ridiculous.
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“I wrote to the DG NCAA, to complain but if someone claimed my statement is inciting, well, they are entitled to their opinion. But come to think of it, inciting who? Kano people not to fly Air Peace anymore because the airline insulted their emir and refused to apologise? That I have no regret if anybody claimed or interprets my complaint that way.
“After all, Air Peace has been in business before coming to Kano and Kano people have been flying across the world without Air Peace. So if that is what he wanted, so be it, we will get there.
“I am a professional pilot. I have flown five heads of state besides being a prince of Kano, and I am a personal friend to the Chairman of Air Peace, Mr Onyema.”
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