A former Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr Olusegun Harold Demuren has recapped how the 2009 attempted bombing of a United States bound aircraft by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian underwear bomber as the most trying period during his time at the regulatory agency.
This is just as he declared that the sad incident led to improved security across the country’s airports, especially the international aerodromes, as the security layers in Nigeria was increased from seven to 20 by the US.
Abdulmutallab, had on Christmas Day in 2009 tried to bring down a U.S. commercial flight heading to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 while attempting to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear.
Speaking at the Second 2022 Breakfast Business Meeting organized by Aviation Round Table (ART) in Lagos with the theme: ‘Perspective in Multi-Layer Aviation Security System and Passenger Facilitation,’ Demuren who was the Director-General of NCAA at the time of the incident, in his keynote speech, narrated how it was the then minister of aviation, Mr Babatunde Omotoba that called his attention to the incident.
Calling for cooperation and collaboration among the security agencies in the sector for improved security system, Demuren declared: “Up to the 1980s, there was no major aviation security challenges in Africa. Then came the 1993 Nigerian Airways Hijack (Lagos-Abuja Flight, diverted to Niamey, Niger Republic). After this was the 9/11 attack in the US, which changed the face of aviation security in the world. Layers upon layers of security were introduced in the US.
“In Nigeria, we had the Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab 2010 failed bomb attempt on KLM/NorthWest Airline. After this incident, NCAA ordered for enhanced multi-layered security measures at our airports, including body scanners.’
Going down the memory lane, Demuren while explaining how Omotoba had woken him up in the middle of the night to break the incident to him, however, noted that the installation of modern equipment at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, revealed the entire activities of Abdulmutallab at the airport to the security team.
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According to him, the Closed Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) footage provided by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) at the airport, had extricated Nigeria from complacency in the heinous crime as Nigeria was able to provide all the necessary documents as requested by the US, which led to the removal of Nigeria among the blacklisted countries by the US.
“The Abdulmutallab incident was the saddest day of my life as the DG NCAA. I was woken up in the middle of the night by the Minister of Aviation who told me to go and watch the news. It was all over the news that a Nigerian wanted to kill Americans, but the CCTV footage saved us. When we were asked to provide our evidence, we were able to show it to US and what we had then, some big aviation countries didn’t have them.
“At this point, I’ll like to appreciate the contribution of the various agencies at the airport, particularly FAAN for providing the CCTV footage. The Nigerian Immigration Service that provided detailed entry and exit from the airport and the MAVIS for providing the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) information and others. These were parts of the information NCAA used to remove Nigeria’s name from the ‘US Country of Interest Watchlist.”
Equally, key players in the sector have called on all security agencies to work in synergy to avoid terrorism attack in the sector even as they insisted that the sector was still safe for flight operations.
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