By Tony Ogunlowo
From the 8th of
March the Nnamdi Azikwe International airport, in Abuja, Nigeria’s second
busiest airport will close for approximately six weeks for repairs. It is to
enable the authorities carry out essential maintenance work on the facilities
and pot-holed runway. Julius Berger, contracted to do the job, are ready and
have promised to have it ready in time.
As an alternative all flights are being re-routed to
Kaduna, a small regional airport, about two hundred kilometres away. To try and
minimize disruption the government is providing free shuttle buses to and fro
with armed police presence along the way as notorious armed robbers and
kidnappers are known to prowl the route.
There are currently twenty-six airports in the country
ranging from small regional ones to the much bigger international ones such as
MMIA in Lagos. Under the auspices of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
(FAAN) a great many of these airports have been allowed to fall into a state of
disrepair over the years. It’s not uncommon for these airports to have
uncompleted structures, gaping holes in their runways, non-existent sanitary and
passenger facilities, constant power failure and security issues. Some
airports, like the one in Port Harcourt, are just glorified ramshackle motor
parks complete with agberos and other unsavoury characters. Like with most
other things in Nigeria there is a lack of constant maintenance. You
can’t just close an international airport for six weeks to repair it,
maintenance and refurbishment should be an ongoing concern 24/7, 365 days a
year. Can you imagine the uproar if Heathrow airport in London or JFK in New
York had to close for six weeks? Millions of passengers pass through these
terminals every year, not to talk of freight. They don’t even close on
Christmas day and they have a dedicated maintenance team that keeps the
facilities and runways up to scratch round the clock.
But not in Nigeria, Lagos MMIA and Abuja airports are
amongst the worst 10 airports in Africa and the disgrace-of-an-airport in Port
Harcourt has been voted the world’s worst one.
You can’t just build an airport and forget about it, expecting
it to self-repair itself when the need arises. The FAAN and successive
governments have shown a total disregard for the upkeep of the airports. Many
airports have uncompleted and abandoned structures, such as Yakubu Gowon or
Port Harcourt airports, due to lack of adequate funds to complete the projects(
- which could have been allocated and subsequently pilfered ?) putting both
planes and passengers at great risk. Pilots are forever complaining about
having to negotiate pot-holes on runways and in December 2013 a Saudi Arabian
cargo plane damaged its undercarriage landing on a runway in Abuja.
All this is in addition to frequent power cuts which have
seen not-so-friendly staff trying to get people on to flights using
flashlights. The lack of power also affects navigational aids which are crucial
to planes taking off and landing – and that’s if the landing aids are installed
in the first place! There’s even been a case where passengers have been forced
to use a step ladder to disembark from a plane because portable stairs were not
available! Imagine some airports, in the 21st century, still
using tents as check-in halls? Disgraceful!
On a rather embarrassing note whenever there is harmattan
or bad weather over Lagos MMIA flights are diverted to Cotonu, next
door, because they have better facilities and navigational aids – and the power
doesn’t go! Better facilities, better runway, better navigational aids because
the government of a miniscule country called Republic of Benin know the
importance of maintaining an airport. In Nigeria, however, more important is
the allocation of funds from the budget for the maintenance of the airport
which will subsequently disappear into someone’s bank account and no work will
be done.
Even the security around the airports is laughable: herders
are known to take their cattle to graze on the grassy fields in between runways
and armed robbers sometimes try to hijack planes taxiing.
Over fifteen million passengers use Nigerian airports every
year and all these people expect these gateways into the country to be
pleasant, well-maintained and safe. Using an airport in Nigeria is like
catching a bus at the Mile Two bus stop with its non-existent
shelters, area boys and agberos ready to prance on you, pot-holed dusty roads
and that’s not to talk about the buses themselves which are death-traps on
wheels.
The first impression anyone gets when visiting a new
country is when they disembark at the airport. And if your airport is full of
bolekaja personnel, appalling facilities and services and uncompleted buildings
with bandits and herders roaming freely around you are not painting a positive
picture of the country. No wonder Nigerian airports are bottom of the list on
most travel websites.
Follow me on Twitter: @Archangel641 or visit http://www.archangel641.
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