Abuja airport runway, disaster waiting to happen, Minister warns

THE Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has warned that the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, runway has totally failed and is a disaster waiting to happen.

Sirika, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), gave the warning when he received the Coalition for Civil Society Group on Friday in Abuja.

He said the government was determined to ensure safety and avoid disaster in the sector, adding that closure of the airport for six week remained the only viable option.

The minister said that many critical stakeholders in the industry including Council for the Regulation of Engineering (COREN) had agreed with the decision of the government.

According to him, the Nigerian Society of Engineers was the only body that had opposed the decision.

Sirika, however, said that the aerodrome engineers in the society agreed with government’s decision to close the airport to avert disaster.

“The Abuja airport runway is completely damaged, the entire structure and the architecture is gone and the runway has failed and it is just a disaster waiting to happen.

“No matter what it is, I will not sit back and fold my arms and watch disaster unfold while I superintend.

“I believe that it is an executive function which should be carried out and I believe also that we should be responsible for our actions and inactions.

“If I don’t do anything it becomes inaction and will be equal to disaster.

“If I act appropriately to save it, I will be meeting the expectations of the person who appointed me and of course the expectation of the Nigerian people that we serve,’’ he said.

The minister asked the members of civil society groups with engineering background to examine the runway and possibly carry out integrity test on it to ascertain its condition.

He said that different options recommended by different stakeholders were not good options to be considered based on the deplorable nature of the runway.

According to him, the path we have chosen is a path that for us is the only way to rehabilitate that runway.

“It is a job of six months with the procurement start to finish but within these six months, there will be six weeks closure of the runway.

“We will close it and we will be working day and night to ensure that we deliver the project and it will be six weeks and six weeks no more,” he said.