The Federal Government on Tuesday disclosed that the country has achieved over 96 per cent improvement in aviation security.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika said this while speaking with State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, explaining that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) did the rating after a series of screening and checks.
While explaining how the country was able to attain the feat, the Minister noted that a template was developed for security and experts were engaged on before approval by the President.
He added Buhari graciously approved that the system was reorganised to make it better.
He said: “Today Nigeria has shifted from where it was in aviation security because we have scored 96.4 per cent. I have just seen the President and delivered to him something that we are very proud of as Nigerians; a certificate for improved security in civil aviation.
“Civil aviation is about safety and security, how very safe and secure you depart a point and land at the other point. At the time the current President took over we were very marginally scored in terms of security and safety,” he said.
“We included the appointment of key individuals including the head of aviation security in the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) where we found a seasoned Group Captain who was a security expert himself and got him trained on aviation security and deployed him as head of security.
“Among other things we put things in place to deal especially with insider security and that got us somewhere on the world map of aviation security.”
He recalled how some passengers of Turkish Airline threatened airport officials in 2015, saying the incident gave a wake-up call to aviation officials in the country and they kept improving the security architecture across the country’s airports, leading to the attainment of a near-perfect situation.
Sirika said Nigeria was certified alongside 15 other countries, after a worldwide survey on security by the International Civil Aviation Organisation ICAO.
“ICAO which is the having the statutory responsibility of monitoring, policing or regulating the world of aviation and setting standards, took a survey of 193 member countries of ICAO form among which 16 were found to have improved security in their aviation system tremendously and gladly, Nigeria was one of those 16 countries.
“Our score from the audit of ICAO was 96.4 per cent, a remarkable improvement from a country that was scoring less than 50 per cent in the past. Today, form the approvals we got form our President, his guidance and counselling, we have been able to raise that to 96 per cent, which is near perfect and in recognition of that, the country Nigeria received a certificate in Montreal Canada during the General Assembly of ICAO and we are proud to announce that,” he said.
Sirika said all necessary steps would be taken to ensure that the country maintains the standard and continue to do well in aviation.
“It wasn’t overnight that we scored 96 per cent it took over there years of hard work to achieve it and we will continue to do so,” he pledged.
The Minister said 721 aviation security personnel had since been profiled and trained by the State Security Service on the handling of guns and lot more and would soon be deployed to enhance security at the country’s airports.
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