Keyamo tasks FAAN with total overhaul of old terminal at Lagos int’l airport
In a bid to address infrastructural decay at the nation’s airports, Nigeria’s Minister for Aviation, Festus Keyamo has issued marching orders to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to shut down the old terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport for total repairs.
Keyamo, who gave the order during a facility tour of the airport today, said the old terminal is a complete eyesore, and is not befitting to be the gateway of the country.
He ordered that FAAN should relocate all the airlines using the terminal to the new terminal built by the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) before October 1, 2023.
According to him, why the new terminal has not been in use is because of its faulty design, as there is no provision for bigger aircraft and it does not have avio bridges for passengers to embark and disembark.
“The major complaint of Nigerians or foreigners coming into the country has been about the old terminal. That terminal is an eyesore. And we have this old terminal that the Chinese built. Nigerians have been asking why the new terminal is not put into use.
“The simple reason is that I don’t know how this new terminal was designed. There is no provision for the big planes. I don’t know how it happened. I’ve been asking questions about how they would design an international gateway like the Lagos terminal without a provision to take the big planes; it doesn’t have the avio bridges that can link to the big planes. That has been the reason why we have not been using this new terminal and that’s why Nigerians have been asking that question.
“Meanwhile 60 per cent of the revenue of FAAN comes from the Lagos Airport. The Lagos gateway is one of the major gateways into the country. So what is the solution to this? We have said we must use what we have for now.
“I am giving the international and all the other airlines until October 1 to move from the old terminal to the new terminal. What we are going to do temporarily is that we are going to shut down the old terminal and sort out all the issues regarding the renovation of the old terminal,” Keyamo said.
On other controversial issues regarding concession of airports by the former minister, Hadi Sirika, Keyamo said he has suspended all projects and concessions embarked upon by the former minister, including the Nigeria Air project until he will be able to provide an explanation to the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“There are issues already on the ground before I came; concession and all of that. For now I have suspended all of that until I brief the president as to what is happening regarding all those noises going on, including the issue of the Nigeria Air. I have given them the directive to suspend everything until I brief Mr President fully. The duty I owe Mr President is honesty; he brought me here and for me to correctly advise him.
“For now, the temporary arrangement we want to make and for the comfort of Nigerians we have to find a way to use the new terminal built by the Chinese even without the big planes coming in because there are no avio bridges for them to use and the gate bridges for the passengers to pass.
“So like it’s done in many other countries we are going to do emergency procurement to buy the big buses. So we are going to put them in buses and move them to where the big planes stop in an orderly fashion, both the arrival and departure so that Nigerians can have some sort of comfort with this new facility,” Keyamo explained.
He noted that the long term plan is to build avio bridges for the big planes coming in “and that means that some of those private hangars will have to go for public purpose. If we have to do anything for them we will relocate them so that we can have a beautiful and functional gateway to Nigerians.
“Right now I’m giving them up to the 1st of October to shut down the old terminal so that we can use this new terminal by this arrangement,” he said.
