Nigerian airports’ poor outing
Three Nigerian airports were recently rated among the worst in Africa. While Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, was voted the 10th worst in Africa, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and Port Harcourt International Airport, Port Harcourt, were ranked the seventh and the sixth worst, respectively.
The report was contained in a survey conducted by The Guide to Sleeping in Airports, the website that documents information on airports and the people who sleep in them.
In a statement by the website, voters submitted stories as they relate to unfortunate airport experiences across the continent.
The investigation covered “dirty floors and bathrooms to the regular request for bribes”; “travellers were unimpressed with the airports that made it onto this year’s worst airports in Africa list”, according to the researchers. “Other complaints revolved around a lack of air conditioning in sweltering climates, general navigational chaos, limited yet expensive restaurant options and questionably effective security processes.” It added: “While travelling through these airports, most people prefer to skip the airport sleeping experience altogether and splurge on a nearby airport hotel instead. These airports task patience of travellers.”
We are sufficiently pained that these airports are so poorly rated even after the country has not long ago expended a whopping $1 billion (about N400 billion) in the name of airport facelift. We are also at a loss whether or not the $1 billion Chinese loan accessed by the immediate past administration was actually utilised for the purpose.
It is unacceptable that Nigeria, which parades itself as the largest economy in Africa, is leading the pack of African countries with terrible airports. It is also very shameful for Nigeria to lag behind South Africa, Algeria, Ethiopia, among others.
We note that several attempts made in the recent past by Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to improve the state of the airports through public-private partnership have been enmeshed in controversy. FAAN had at several times disagreed with indigenous concessionaires over contract terms. The recent examples are Maevis Ltd, an integrated automated service provider, and Bi-Courtney Limited, the concessionaire of the MMA2. Incredible as it sounds, in both cases FAAN claimed the agreements were skewed in favour of the concessionaires and against the Federal Government. So, did they not study the contract documents before signing them?
Saleh Dunoma, managing director, FAAN, recently admitted to the federal lawmakers that, indeed, the nation’s airports were one of the worst in the world, adding that most facilities and equipment at the airports were obsolete as they were acquired over three decades ago. It was also disclosed that the facilities are being over-stretched because new ones had not been acquired in recent years. Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, for instance, was designed to provide services to about 11 million air travellers yearly; Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, 9 million; and Aminu Kano Airport in Kano was designed to take care of 6 million passengers. But over the years, they have overshot these numbers and have therefore been over-stretched.
In the recent past, Nigeria received international acclaim following the efforts of the aviation agencies; hence the country was able to get the Category One status. Although the CAT 1 certification, as it is called, is quite different from the current rating which was purely based on necessary infrastructure for travellers’ comfort, facilitation and others, it is our considered opinion that Nigeria must always strive for excellence. The country, no doubt, has all it takes to achieve whatever it wills, both in terms of human resources and material endowments.
Lack of maintenance culture has been the bane of Nigeria and successive governments have played the ostrich whenever it comes to paying attention to public institutions. This negative culture is responsible for the decrepit government-owned structures all over the country.
We have noted with dismay that some so-called experts in the aviation sub-sector of the nation’s economy have since risen in condemnation of the rating. For us, we think that there should be a concerted effort and sufficient appeal on the Federal Government to see it as a challenge and do the needful to pull the country from the mire of shame it has found itself.
We should continue to improve on the safety and security at the airports as well as in-flight operations. The terminal buildings and the facilities need total overhaul or total replacement. And the time to do so is now.