Dr. Bernard Aliu, smiled broadly as Senate President, Senator David Mark, praised his dedication and forthrightness which has brought honour to Nigeria. Aliu, who serves as the country’s representative on the Board of ICAO is the newly elected President of the governing council of ICAO, the organ of the United Nations which oversees aviation safety globally. He is the first African to lead ICAO as its president, after over 60 years of its existence.
Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah, led the Aviation Ministry team which included the Special Adviser to the President on Aviation Reforms, Ms Anne Ene-Ita and Dr. Aliu. Industry observers say that Dr. Aliyu’s election has not only brought pride and a sense of high achievement to the country, it also symbolises the giant strides which the Nigerian aviation industry has taken over the past one year.
This year, 2013 is particularly significant, as the year when most of the physical infrastructure that provide a concrete manifestation of the growing success of the transformation agenda of the Jonathan administration in the aviation sector have been put in place. The agenda has been tall and tough. Re-modelling 22 airports – almost at once! Yes, because we are in a hurry to reverse the inertia, the waffling and the lack of focus of the past. So far, five of these remodelled airports have been commissioned – Domestic Terminal (MMA), Benin Airport, Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, Mallam Aminu Kanto International Airport, Kano, and new General Aviation Terminal at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The remaining terminals are at various stages of completion.
On December 13, 2013, at exactly 3.00am local time, the inaugural flight of Turkish Airlines from Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano departed to Istanbul en-route Ndijamena with 105 passengers on board, debunking earlier insinuations that the Federal Government was frustrating efforts to bring in more foreign airlines to Mallam Aminu Kano Airport. Such insinuations may have explained the excitement and delight of the Honourable Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah at the start of flight operations by Turkish Airlines in Kano.
Represented at the inaugural flight ceremony by the Commissioner of the AIB, Capt. Usman Muktar, she described the commencement of Turkish Airlines’ flight at the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport as another milestone in President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda in the aviation industry.
Earlier at the ceremony, Governor Kwankwaso had received the Vice President of Turkish Airlines who was on board the inaugural flight when it arrived from Istanbul.
With this development, travellers especially businessmen and women from the North would now be saved the stress of first travelling to Lagos or Abuja before embarking on international trips to any part of the world.
On May 18, 2013, President Jonathan commissioned the remodelled terminal of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport and also laid the foundation stone of a new international terminal there, one of such five terminals to be built in Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt, under a Memorandum of Understanding between the Nigerian and Chinese governments. Again, on August 24, 2013, a historic first international flight, an Ethiopian Airline flight, took off from that airport for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the first direct flight from the South East of Nigeria to the rest of the world since the end of the Nigerian civil war, over 40 years ago.
With this development, travelers especially businessmen and women from the South East area would now be saved the stress of first travelling to Lagos or Abuja before being able to board an international flight to any part of the world, according to Princess Oduah, who motivated this achievement. High ranking government officials including the Secretary to the government of the Federation, Senator Pius Anyim, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ikweremadu, governors of Abia, Theodore Orji, Enugu Sullivan Chime, Anambra Peter Obi, Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, – all witnessed the historic occasion.
October 29, 2013 was another historic day when the Nigerian government signed the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with the State of Israel, in Tel Aviv. The agreement would, for the first time in decades, open the route for direct flights between Nigeria and Israel. Every year, thousands of Nigerians travel to Israel on Christian pilgrimage and for business purposes. In line with the objective of the Aviation Minister to expand the frontiers of the Nigerian aviation industry, the Aviation Ministry had earlier approved direct flights to Oman, the Jordanian capital when it granted licence to the Royal Jordanian Airlines to operate that route during the year.
The Aviation Ministry also vigorously tackled the loss of government revenue in the sector which led to low level of staff morale and unprofessionalism in aviation agencies, due to delays in the payment of salaries and promotions. All revenue points in the agencies have now been automated, leading to increased revenue profiles. The drain pipe concessions, especially in FAAN, were legally terminated and the Authority re-engineered through structural changes that have encouraged professionalism and quality service delivery at all our airports.
A new Directorate of Cargo Development has been created in FAAN to fully exploit the rich potentials Nigeria has in air cargo transport business, one area where Nigeria has been missing for several years. African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana who participate in the exportation of perishable produce as fruits, vegetables and flowers by air earn about $12billion per annum from this source. The Aviation Minister is determined to redress the situation by addressing the infrastructural deficit at the country’s airports which were not built for cargo. The Ministry has begun to construct wholly new air cargo facilities at designated airports around the country. These include Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano and Lagos Airports. The establishment of an Advertisement Department for the first time in the history of FAAN is meant to ensure that the prime outdoor advert locations within the airport corridors are properly managed so that the Authority can get the appropriate revenue from advertisements at the country’s airports which are prime advert areas the world over.
During President Goodluck Jonathans’ state visit to the Republic of China in July, 2013, he signed several bilateral trade and business agreements with the Chinese government worth about $5billion dollars, a major highlight of which was the agreement for the construction of five new international airport terminals at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Enugu by the Chinese state-owned construction corporation, CECC. The new terminals in Lagos and Abuja are expected to be completed next year, 2014.
During the year, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO also listed Nigeria as one of the 14 countries in Africa that have achieved a high and effective level of air safety implementation which is above the global average of 61 per cent. The Ministry of Aviation has also been tackling seriously the issue of infrastructure deficit at the country’s airports. In September, 2013, FAAN installed 7 new X-ray scanners at the Murtala Muhammed international Airport, Ikeja, which has also been transformed through a massive structural expansion and re-modelling programme. To be sure, the infrastructure deficit at the country’s airports remains daunting. This is mainly due to the fact that re-investment in these facilities – upgrade and maintenance – over the past four decades have been largely inadequate.
During the year, the Federal Government provided fire fighting equipment at major airports to boost the quick response time of the agencies to emergency situations, in addition to the supply of ambulances, security patrol vans and modern security screening equipment. Nonetheless, the issue of perimeter fencing at all airports which is necessary to boost security at the airports, remained a major challenge due to the sheer size of the various airports round the country. And of course, the massive cost of embarking on such a project at this time. That problem was highlighted by the unfortunate stowaway incident at the Benin Airport few months ago. FAAN has however, initiated new security measures to counter such incidents until government is able to provide perimeter fencing for all airports around the country.
Another major challenge is that of providing constant, uninterrupted power supply to all airports, in the face of unreliable power supply from the nation grid. FAAN has had to rely mostly on generators for power supply at all airports, at huge financial cost to the Authority.
The seriousness of the problem was highlighted by a few ugly incidents of interruption in power supply while airports were still in operation. This challenge is being addressed vigorously through power improvement projects at all the airports, the completion of which will ensure uninterrupted power supply at these airports.
Taken together, the current aviation administration in the country, under the supervision of Princess Oduah, has achieved an enviable transformation of the Nigerian Aviation sector. She is going even further to begin the implementation of a plan to create aerotropolis (airport cities) project around designated major airports in the country such as the MMIA, Lagos, and other airports in Port Harcourt Airport, Enugu and Kano. The aerotropolis project is designed to make airports form a hub for business, commercial and social activities in cities and states where these airports are located.
The Aviation Minister, Princess Oduah has shown that the aviation industry can contribute meaningfully to the country’s economic growth. Apart from her Aviation Sector Master Plan, popularly called Aviation Roadmap, which has already left landmarks in the country’s aviation landscape through such policies as the removal of import duties on aircraft spares, providing enabling environment for local airlines to acquire new aircraft and reintroducing a national carrier, the amazon has also done two major significant things in recent times that all her predecessors in office could not do in over 15 years – cleared the airport landscape of abandoned aircraft and MMA’s immediate vicinity of tankers, both of which constituted great hindrance to safety at our airports.
