President of the Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), Mr Kingsley Nwokoma, has said that despite the high number of airports in the country, most of them have infrastructure deficit with little investments on facilities.
Nwokoma, who said this during an interaction with some journalists at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, added that the continuous heavy investment on airport constructions by state governments is a waste of inadequate resources.
He noted that the presence of multiple government agencies and charges at the airports has been described as one of the major reasons export is low in Nigeria, while cargo aircraft continues to fly out of the country empty.
Nwokoma, who wondered why most state governments spend resources in building airport facilities when existing ones are not viable and not optimally used, remarked, “Most of the airports in Nigeria still lack good infrastructure and several of the airports can’t be categorised as airports. Now, state governments building airports to me is a waste.
“Why will you build an airport when you know that in less than 100km, there is another airport? Rather, we should make sure that the existing airports are effectively utilised.”
He equally condemned the location of the second terminal at the international wing of the Lagos airport, saying that the facility lacked conducive operating environment for manoeuvering of big aircraft in the class of Boeing 747, B777.
“The avio-bridges are not strategically located. So, what is the essence of having such an airport when everyone has to park at the old terminal and passengers have to come down, board a bus to connect the new terminal?
“We need to get things right. An airport is not just an office space. You can as well just build offices and call them an airport. An airport is a safety place where human beings and aircraft and other users of the airport can use comfortably.
“The new government should look into the status of our airports and ensure that they are world-class and rectify the past mistakes. Some of the big aircraft that land in other parts of the world can’t land and manoeuver in the new terminal,” he said.
He insisted that multiple charges by government agencies are one of the reasons export is low from the country even as he frowned at the multiple agencies and checks at the airports, which he said negated the ease-of-doing-business policy of the Federal Government.
“The ease-of-doing-business is at the lowest ebb in this country. For you to get it right, we must ensure that the ease-of-doing-business for investors is created. You can’t have a long table of quarantine, Customs, police bomb squad, Immigration, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and others all on 1kg of export. This is something that we have to look into,” he said.
