Abuja, Port Harcourt airports’ terminals for inauguration in October

Barring any last minute change, the multi-million naira terminals at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport and that of Port Harcourt International airport are set to be commissioned by the end of this month.

This is just as the Federal Government has insisted that there is no going back with earlier plans to concession the four international airports across the country.

Making this declaration at the International wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport was the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika at the unveiling of the multi-million naira Legend Lagos Airport Hotel, last week.

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Sirika, before he cut the tape to open the hotel, disclosed that the new airport terminals in Abuja and Port Harcourt built by the Chinese under the $500 million facility from China Exim Bank will  be inaugurated before end of October.

With the commissioning of the new terminals in Abuja and Port Harcourt, and with  the completion of the ones at Lagos and Kano international airports, and other strategic airports under the $500 million facility from China Exim Bank, the minister said Nigeria will soon witness an upsurge in passengers’ traffic.

Presently, Nigeria’s passenger traffic annually is put at 16 million, the figure which he said will increase in view of the location of Nigeria and its population which makes it a natural hub.

Contrary to fears being raised about Ghana becoming the hub in the sub region, Sirika said the passenger traffic in the sister country can never make it a hub over Nigeria despite the new  terminal the government of that country recently built for the Kotoka Airport.

His words: “If you talk about passenger traffic in air transportation, Ghana was just 450,000 passengers per annum last year. Here, with all the dilapidated structures around the airports which we are working hard to improve very soon, Nigeria did about 16 million passengers, that’s 30 times Ghana market. We’re so lucky

by our geography to be at the centre of the world. We are close to all locations in the world”.