Airport Remodelling Or Air Safety? Capt. Daniel Omale — Jul 19, 2014 Twice this month, the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport was shut down for runway repairs. The single runway airport in the capital of Nigeria has witnessed serial cracks that require continuous patching to enable utilization. After nearly 30 years of continuous bashing, the original asphalt has gradually lost viscosity and strength to accommodate further various aircraft weights due to load factor. In a normal country with rational leaders, the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport should have had a second runway to support the aging landing strip. The associated cost of flight disruption into the airfield is enormous, and if a national emergency had occurred during the time of airport closure, it would have been unbearable. Stella Oduah’s administration as aviation minister was full of rhetoric/propaganda. Her vision of the industry, the aviation roadmap, was an avenue to loot the system in the name of airport remodelling. The airport remodelling programme, an incomplete exercise, has plunged the nation into a debt of N174 billion; only the General Aviation terminals in Lagos and Abuja are barely near-completion. Oduah was more concerned with terminal building renovation which, in her mind, was equivalent to aviation safety. She hypnotized and induced the ever-gracious Nigerians into believing that she had come to cleanse the 38-year- old rot in the system. Unfortunately, the reverse was the case. Stella Oduah actually became the rot in the system. Commercial aviation safety is an international subject, heavily regulated by agencies such as the NCAA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as well as their international counterparts, including the Standards and Recommended Practices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The introduction of the Safety Management Systems (SMS) by ICAO throughout the world has created a paradigm shift in the management of the aviation sector of any economy. Air safety is simply the implementation of safety programmes in aviation industry. Terminal building remodelling without runway improvement is not aviation safety enhancement. Runway 18L of Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, has been without a runway lighting system for the past seven years. Oduah and her team introduced unapproved temporary lighting technology, which they claim to have purchased for millions of dollars. The Federal Airports Authority (FAAN), the operator of the airports in Nigeria, was not consulted or involved in the whole transaction to substitute permanent runway lighting system with fake illuminants. As of writing this article, runway 18L of Lagos is closed to traffic after 6pm every day. Another area of missteps is in Air Traffic Management (ATM). Navigation, communication and surveillance, the heart and soul of ATM have never been on the decline like now. Kano Flight Information Region (FIR) is basically inaccessible by pilots wishing to make request or inform the Kano centre of their position. Inbound, outbound or overflight traffic within Kano FIR suffer immensely from inaccessible/ congested radio communication as a result of low and ineffectual radio transmission strength from poor equipment. The radio equipment in the Kano centre is old and obsolete. Oduah’s roadmap is less concerned with air traffic management. There are very few airports in Nigeria today with serviceable very high omni-directional range(VOR) and instrument landing system(ILS). Training of aircraft inspectors and surveyors of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) was never in her diary. Funds allocated for NCAA personnel training was diverted to airport remodelling for aesthetic and social approval. The symbol of her roadmap includes bulletproof vehicles, limousines for executive aircraft, and over-inflated airport renovation contracts. The whole concept of aviation roadmap has always been a charade, immense corruption, and totally devoid of aviation safety. The fact that the aviation ministry is indebted to the tune of N174billion to Stella’s companies or companies owned by her proxies should explain better. Nigeria is a country where extensive screening of a would-be public officers is virtually non-existent. Appointment to plum government jobs is based on whose godfather is or was in government. Oduah had no virtuous background before her appointment, and no one should be surprised that she has cleverly committed the federal government to a debt that would have been avoided by an educated, rational individual. In the name of aviation roadmap, the former minister squandered all available funds in the bilateral air service agreement (BASA) account. Using the same slogan, she borrowed $500m from China to erect another terminal building in Abuja. Any meaningful future aviation minister should first discard Oduah’s roadmap, privatise the majority of our airports, and embark on real safety initiatives. A second runway at Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport is long overdue. We have, numerous times, intimated the government of the utmost necessity to maintain constant flight operations in Abuja – of course we have spoken to deaf ears. Another runway at Abuja wouldn’t have given Stella the social accolade she desperately wanted, but it would have saved the nation the embarrassment of closing down an airport at the nation’s capital. Although Ms Oduah has marginally left the scene, the rot she created still lingers.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:09:40 +0000
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