The story of the ongoing collaborations between the Seyi Makinde-led government of Oyo State and the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development to upgrade the Ibadan airport at Alakia to an international status cannot be complete without acknowledging the role of Senator Kola Balogun, who in 2019, sponsored the first motion for the upgrade of the airport that has finally become a reality five years after. In this interview with SHOLA ADEKOLA, the senator speaks on his role, efforts of the present governor and his confidence in the viability of the airport.
YOUR take on the recent announcement by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State that the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development, has started working with the Oyo State Government to convert the Ibadan airport in Alakia to an international gateway?
It is a welcome development. It also shows the beauty of proactiveness and cooperation.
Proactive in the sense that the first motion that I moved when I came into the Senate was that Ibadan airport needed to be upgraded and it was overwhelmingly passed and supported by my colleagues.
I took a step further, I worked with the committee on aviation headed then by Senator Smart Adeyemi, so the joint committee on aviation visited Ibadan based on my request to Inspect the facilities and to also know the needs of the airport and what federal government should do to upgrade the airport. Fortunately during that visit we paid the government a courtesy visit and so he knew why we were there and he was happy about it.
So for me as they would say in Yoruba land, whether the wrapper is on the body or the body is on the wrapper, as long as the body is not naked, so the governor has done well, I must commend his efforts but everything that has been happening is happening based on what was already on the record. In other words you don’t build something on nothing. If the governor has written to Mr President seeking for his approval for Ibadan airport to be upgraded, to my understanding of the workings of democracy, the president must have sought for the advice of relevant ministry, in other words, Ministry of Aviation and, therefore, it must have been easier for Minister of Aviation to advise the president to go ahead because already they have in their record the National Assembly resolution and the fact that I also tried to push some funds into 2023 budget even though it was not possible, but I worked with the members of my committee to jump-start the project before I left the senate. So, what the government or the governor has done for me is commendable and also of course he realised that what I was able to do would have made it easier for the government to get an approval, so I commend the government.
I am just praying and hoping that everyone will play his part to ensure that we have a standard international airport in Ibadan, its long overdue because Ibadan is the regional capital of the south western region, Enugu is the capital of eastern region and it has an international airport, so is Kaduna, why is Ibadan neglected for so long.During the time I was working to move the motion just because before you can successfully move a motion you must do some lobbying amongst your colleagues, the first person I spoke with before I brought the motion to the floor was the former aviation minister, Mrs Stella Oduah, I went to her office to seek her support and in doing so during our conversation, I challenged her and asked her why she did not do it when she was the Minister of Aviation; ‘you did Enugu and Kaduna both capitals of their respective regions and Ibadan was the capital of the Western Region, why didn’t you do it.’ She made me to believe that before they could do that because you are talking of something that will involve government funds and budgeted that they will look at the traffic count, so she said there was no traffic count in Ibadan. And I challenged her if there was traffic count in Lagos, she said of course there was traffic count in Lagos and I asked her if she knew where 70 percent of Lagos traffic was coming from, I told her Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti up to Kwara. I told her that if you give me an international airport at Ibadan, I would have cut off Lagos traffic by half and also reduce the burden on Lagos because if I’m trav-elling from Lagos to outside the country and my flight is 11pm, I have to leave Ibadan between 2 and 3pm and that is nine hours difference. But if I’m flying from Ibadan International Airport, between my house at Ibadan and Alakia, it is just about 15 minutes or from any part of Ibadan. So I gave her that explanation which she agreed and we both agreed that Ibadan deserved an international airport. That was how I got the support of most of my colleagues. So I’m happy about the development, anything that has to do with the development of your state is not just the local government, state government business but everybody’s business, individuals must have roles to play, for us to move our state forward, so l’m happy about it.
Is it worth having another international airport at Ibadan despite its proximity to Lagos?
Like I said earlier, Lagos is overburdened. Do you know that as we speak, even as Ibadan is still operating domestic flights, people come from Ogun to Ibadan to fly to Abuja and other places.
For example, if you are coming from Abeokuta or you are coming from ljebu Ode to get to Lagos, you never know what can happen as you might spend three to five hours to get to Lagos airport at Ikeja. And so they find it more convenient to come to Ibadan in just 45 minutes to catch their flight out of Ibadan and similarly from ljebu Ode to Ibadan and catch your flight. So, the traffic situation in Lagos is very discouraging to those who want to fly out of Lagos, not to talk of those coming from Ondo, Osun and Ekiti, Kwara even Edo State. So this is the advantage that Ibadan has. Ibadan is just the gateway to all these places. So if we have an international airport at Ibadan, of course it will just cut the Lagos traffic by half and so the traffic count in Ibadan will rise and there is no way Ibadan airport will not be viable.
Secondly, when I was also lobbying my colleagues, for exam-ple, Senator Ibn NAllah is a big player in the aviation industry, he flies private jets, even his children are pilots. So when Senator Dino Melaye was the Chairman of the Committee on Aviation before his election was nullified, Senator N’Allah as the Vice Chairman stepped in as the acting chairman. So, I also spoke with him on the need to support my motion and in doing so, there was a day I visited him in his office and fortunately he was having a meeting with officials in charge of aviation and I did not even know who they were until they got into conversation and he told me: “thank God that I was already talking to those you need to talk to about your case.” So he came up with this argument that aside from the commercial viability and other advantages Ibadan as an international airport encompasses, he also came up with the technical argument that God forbids if an aircraft is coming from London and it has a technical problem that the nearest airport to land and save lives is Ibadan.
These were the number of arguments that we canvassed to support not just the viability but the need to have an international airport Ibadan. So for us, it’s a good development and I know not just people of Ibadan and Oyo State that are happy and others in the region.
When I was a commissioner in Oyo State, I also called stakeholders meeting and many people from Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Kwara that usually have to travel to Lagos airport to clear their consignments, were very happy about having an international airport at Ibadan and they keyed into it by asking us to fast-track it because it’s going to be a point of final destination, just put your containers on the ship from Netherlands or any part of the world and collect it at Ibadan airport, so you don’t have to worry about going to Lagos.
People are going through a lot to have to travel to Lagos to fly to other countries. Ibadan is viable and in terms of people and landed property, Lagos is even overburdened and there is no landed space in Lagos. Do you know that Ibadan airport you are looking at now has space that can take another airport of the same size. We know the expanse of landed property there; we are ready for any expansion. I’m also calling on all stakeholders and individuals that may have the opportunity to give all the necessary support that we need to make Ibadan international airport a reality in the interest of our people and the people of South West and the people of Nigeria as a whole.
Do you support the notion that Oyo and Osun states should jointly own Ibadan airport?
I’m not in the same ship with those that say Oyo and Osun can jointly own Ibadan airport. Ibadan airport of international standard is going to be a collaborative effort between the Federal Government and the Oyo State, so it is not going to be an airport for only Oyo State but a federal airport to serves people of South-West and beyond. So having a joint airport in this case is not necessary. Oyo State just happens to be in a vantage position to facilitate it and make it happen and so people of Osun will have access to it and so there is no need for us to begin to talk about joint ownership. I know that going forward, the state government will have to work with stakeholders. It is not going to be something that is going to be done by just Oyo State, but Oyo state government can support it.
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