The Federal government has concluded plans to shut down the Nnamdi Azikwe International airport, Abuja today (March 8th 2017) at midnight, for six weeks, to enable the reconstruction of the airport runway whose life span expired 14 years ago.
Assuring of government readiness to close down the International airport and commence repairs on Monday in Abuja, the Minister of state for Aviation, Hadi Sirika reaffirmed that the reconstruction of the airport runway been handle by Julius Berger will be completed in exactly six weeks.
According to him, “everything is set to commence the reconstruction of Abuja runway, the airport will be close for six weeks and not a day longer. I assure you that the runway will be delivered exactly after six weeks” the Ministered guaranteed.
The Minister stated that the renovation of the alternative landing route, the Kaduna airport has been concluded and ready to serve the air traffic meant for Abuja airport, “I just received a call now from Kaduna informing me that renovation has been concluded”.
However, the Tribune Online visited Kaduna airport on the 2rd of March and observed that even the main gate of Kaduna airport was still under construction, the airport lounge was also under renovation with work near completion, but our reporter observed that the work on the terminal building cannot be completed in the next two weeks as the terminal is majorly under construction.
Speaking to the Kaduna airport manager on why the airport terminal is in bad shape, Amina Salami stated that the terminal had been abandoned for a long time and work resumed on the terminal few weeks ago.
According to Salami, “the terminal was abandoned since 2013, that’s a long time. Work just resumed on the terminal few weeks ago” stated Kaduna airport manager.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi also confirmed this on Monday at the joint press briefing between the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Ministry of Transport to brief the media on the readiness of government to close the Abuja airport and commence reconstruction of its runway. “I visited Kaduna airport on Friday with the Vice President, we saw that renovation work has been completed except for few things that must have been fixed by now, the problem majorly is the airport terminal” stated the Minister.
Amaechi assured that even though the terminal of the airport is still under construction, Kaduna airport was ready to receive the huge air traffic that will be redirected to it on the 9th March (Thursday), 2017.
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