Hadi Sirika, the minister of state for aviation has said that he will resign if the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja airport runway is not ready in six weeks period as promised.The airport which was shut down on the 8th of March, was done to carry out major repair of its runway and expectedly, the airport should be ready on19th of April 2017.
Speaking during the Aviation Round Table, (ART), in Lagos today, Sirika said he cannot be stupid to take a decision that involves the lives of over 180million Nigerians and disappoint them at the end of the day.
He reiterated that work is on-going at the Abuja airport, adding that the six weeks will indeed be six weeks for the airport to be ready again for international flight operations.
He said the decision of shutting down the airport and choosing Kaduna airport as its alternate airport was not a political decision but was as a result of security, proximity and convenience concerns for the Nigerian people.
“We have budgeted N150million to charter cargo airplanes to buy and bring in some of the materials we don’t have in Nigeria. We want to build something we can sustain. The runway will be built to last for over ten years,” he added.
Sirika said that at the end of December 2017, the Abuja airport will be certified by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, (ICAO)after which Lagos will follow.
Lai Muhammed, Minister for Information said some people are misinforming Nigerians that the date for the repair work has been extended but said this is not true and the government is resolute on its decision to finish the work at exactly six weeks.
Speaking earlier at the event, Gabriel Olowo, President, Aviation Round Table, said that from year 2000 till 2017, the Nigeria aviation sector had continued to decline, especially with regards to the seat capacity.
To butress this statement, Olowo said in year 2000, the sector provided 12,000 weekly seats. In 2012, it increased to 30,500 seats and in 2015, it also increased to 48,000 weekly seats.
He noted that participation by domestic airlines was between 10percent to eight percent but with the reduction of flight frequencies by the Nigeria’s biggest airline Arik Air and Aero Contractors, the percentage has continued to decline.
He said that it is sad that even if domestic airline increase frequencies, there are no ready airports or airspaces to support numerous flight operations and reciprocate operations, just as the international airlines.
“One-third of only Emirates airline is equivalent to all the African airlines including Egypt Air, South African Airline and Ethiopian Airlines, adfing thay Africa do not have the required capacity to run aviation the way it should be run,” Olowo said.
