Despite the invasion and abduction of eleven airport workers at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s (FAAN) quarters within the Kaduna airport at the weekend, the airport authority has said it will not shutdown the International Airport.
Speaking on the development, the Managing Director of FAAN, Captain Rabiu Yadudu while lamenting the effects of the attack on its staff quarters, he however assured that the management, the State Government and the various security agencies would ensure safety of humans and equipment at all the airports across the country.
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Before the unfortunate attack occurred, according to the FAAN MD, the management had beefed up security networks at all the nation’s airports, even as he promised that last weekend attack would not discourage the authority from tackling any heinous crimes anywhere within the sector.
His words: “This incident is entirely different from closing down the airport. It’s a security concern that we have at our staff quarters. A lot of our staff do not even live in this quarters. If there is need for us to close, we will close it, but this is even far away from it. There is no need for that drastic action. Just small percentage of our staff stay in the staff quarters; the rest are all living in the town. You can see that the staff quarters is fenced. We are taking appropriate measures, but like I said, we just have to improve to counter these challenges.”
“The fence was broken, there are security measures. We have security personnel attending to the area, but somehow, somewhere, things happened and now it is time for us to counter as we have been doing always.
“Security is a race. Security challenges will always come and we will improve and on our own part, we keep improving to outsmart them. Anytime there is a breach of the security architecture, we will still do the same thing. Our staff can attest to this, the state government can attest to this and even the security agencies can tell you this.”
The Chairman, Senate Committee on aviation, Senator Adeyemi Smart who led his members to visit the facilities at the Lagos airport, regretted the security breaches ravaging the country just as he made case for local government policing.
Adeyemi while emphasizing that Nigeria was a federating unit and urged that the country should not shy away from taking a decisive action to tackle the menace,
explained that despite the increase in the population of the country over the years, the security architecture remained same, while Nigeria was faced with porous borders.
He agitated for the restructuring of the entire country in a bid to address the various security challenges confronting it and wondered why some continued to kick against restructuring.
“There is a need for us to evolve new security architecture for Nigeria. Our population has increased and we are still faced with porous borders. Nigeria is not a clear cut federal system. I don’t know how to describe this country; federal system or unitary system, but I do know that Nigeria is said to be a federation and all nations where federalism is practiced, we do not run a unitary system of policing.
“I think the time has come for Nigeria to evolve a system that will appreciate the size of the nation and the diversities. You don’t recruit a graduate we graduated from University of Maiduguri for instance and you post him to Lagos to come and police. He doesn’t know the system and the areas. So, criminals can take advantage of that.
“What I am saying in essence is that the time has come for Nigeria to look at not just a state police, but a local government policing and that is why in the United States, their security is very effective because when you visit any county, the police are aware of those who live there.”