The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Execujet Services, Sam Iwuajoku, has shown that some wealth comes but not with required class and finesse. This much is accentuated in a letter he personally signed and sent to Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, in his bid to extricate his company, Executive Jets Services Limited, from charges of unprofessional conduct pressed against it, which has already resulted in indefinite suspension of its operations by the Federal Government.
In the leaked letter written on the official letter head of Executive Jets, which is an international franchise, Iwuajoku, exhibited extremely poor communication skills and allowed his emotions to becloud his sense of responsibility by describing the passengers on Execujet (which included Nigerian pop star, Naira Marley and his crew) as “a bunch of useless people”, a reference which has sparked widespread condemnations across various social media platforms.
Some analysts have said his uncouth language is a verbal assault not only on Naira Marley and his crew, but also constitute an insult to the Minister of Aviation, the recipient of the letter. His inability to exhibit even temperament and calmness while addressing the Minister was nothing honourable.
Many have called on Iwuajoku to restructure Executive Jets Services Ltd, as they question a situation whereby he, “Chairman and CEO” is the one vested with corporate communications shows lack of organisation since he is not running a one-man show.
Naira Marley and his crew flew Executive Jets Services airline to Abuja flouting the COVID-19 guidelines by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
Labouring hard to justify his company’s widely questioned action, Iwuajoku said he approved the flight because he saw the Minister of Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola’s name on the manifest list not knowing that it was Naira Marley’s name.
But Iwuajoku’s excuse has been tagged as lame on the basis of the fact that Naira Marley’s name is widely known as Fashola Azeez. Even according to the manifest list seen by TheCapital, the only name with Fashola read “Babatunde Adeshina”, not Fashola Babatunde as Iwuajoku claimed in the letter.
In a season when the world is rising to the challenges posed by agitations over racism and class agitations, Iwuajoku exercised what many have called tactless communications in referring to some young Nigerians playing big in the entertainment sector.
Apologising to the Minister of Aviation for his action, Iwuajoku explained that the flight which was billed to fly from Lagos to Abuja was to carry a Judge, which formed the basis for the permit granted by the Federal Government.
“Please the flight was to carry a judge to Abuja on Sunday 14th 2020 as requested and permit was granted based on the application but unfortunately when I called the judge on Saturday morning to inform him that we have the permit, he then said that he has reached Abuja already with a different flight that someone gave him a lift to Abuja.
“So on Saturday morning 13th June 2020, my staff called me that they have a charter flight to Abuja and that the passengers are already in the lounge as a rule passenger manifest is always sent to me before any departure, when I went through the manifest and I saw FASHOLA BABATUNDE, I thought it was the Honourable Minister of Works going to Abuja with his men, so we decided to do the flight since it is a serving minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I didn’t know that it was a bunch of useless people.
“We are very sorry for this mistake and we promise that this would not happen again,” Iwuajoku pleaded.
