President Buhari, thanks for rescuing Enugu airport but…

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari-led government recently approved the release of N10 billion as an intervention fund for the upgrade of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.

With the approval of the fund, work is to earnestly commence at the strategic South East airport after so much back and front buck passing among stakeholders involved in making the airport serve the dividends required to the citizens of the state and other states around through seamless movements of people and goods.

Reasons for the earlier closure of the airport included: bad runway, proximity to a market and the wrong location of the state radio mast.

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Confirming this during one of his interviews with journalists in Abuja on the need to close the airport, the Minister of aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika had declared: “If you ask me, I will close Enugu tomorrow, actually today, because the runway has failed. They are maintaining it regularly to ensure safe operations.

“I am not comfortable because there are also other problems with the runway. It is short, it needs to be extended. We recognise the efforts by the state government by closing down the market beside the airport

“Also, people have built within the premises of the airport on the safety area of the airport and that ought not be, on the land belonging to FAAN. Whoever is the next minister will contend with that because this is safety. Enugu will be dear to the next minister,” he said.

Eventually when the airport was shut down to flight operations to avoid any untoward happenings, there were reactions and counter reactions from different people particularly the citizens of the state and other users of the airport with many lamenting the hardship the closure had inflicted on them and their businesses.

The complaints raised by the users of the airport are not out of place in the sense that the closure hampered their day to day activities vis a vis their income generations, movement of their goods across the various states and the world but their safety is also paramount.

Again, it is sad that the people of the area have been subjected to the sour experience while the closure lasted, the reason for the closure however can be traced to another system failure displayed by the so called professionals responsible for guiding, guarding and providing critical components required for building an adequate airport with standard runway.

Obviously, this so called group of professionals has failed in their job in view of the story surrounding the Enugu airport facilities which will be causing the government another N10 billion for a job which if professionally and sincerely done in the first place would not have required the additional funding  and the inconvenience brought on the airport users.

Since the issue of the Enugu airport runway became a public issue, reactions coming from the aviation sector in particular has been that of anger directed at those who key players accused of deceiving the then President Goodluck Jonathan to commission an airport that lacked the required strength to stand the test of time.

According to one of such key players: “I think the Enugu airport issue is an embarrassment to us all and the industry players who took former President  Goodluck Jonathan to the airport to commission after claiming the airport had been upgraded, runway had been extended and that it was strengthened  to take bigger aircraft and barely two years down the line, the airport began to show that it lacked strength to receive aircraft bigger than 737 which was what it was originally designed for. Invariably, what we had was window dressing and unfortunately, it was the professionals that led the politicians to the site, it was the professionals that gave quotation and only asked the politicians to approve it. I am sure now that what we are having now is causing us extra fund on a job that was shoddily done.

This must no be allowed to go free, those behind this must be brought to justice.” This has been the position of many key players to wards the Enugu airport debacle.

At this juncture, while the Crucial Moment is commending President Muhammadu Buhari and the minister of aviation for coming to the rescue of the airport by approving the intervention fund, it is hoped that work will commence immediately in view of the coming Yuletide during when people will want to travel and transact their businesses through the airport.

While the rescue work is going on, there is the need for government to probe why the airport not quite long after its commissioning started having issues with the runway that was claimed to be of safety standard.

All those who deceived Nigerians into believing that the the airport runway met the safety requirements should be questioned and brought