Airport rating: NAMA boss assures air travellers of safety

Ibrahim Abdulsalam, managing director/chief executive, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), has assured air travellers of adequate safety as necessary facilities had been put in place to forestall air crashes.

Abdulsalam appeared before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Aviation on Wednesday to explain efforts being made by his agency to make the nation’s aviation sector more viable and safe for travellers.

He said his agency had acquired a central radar system stationed in Lagos and Kano to monitor aircrafts in the nation’s airspace, noting that from the Lagos Radar Centre, the operators could view what was happening at the Kano Centre and vice versa.

He added that the radar was of two ways: civil and military, adding that that of the military could be used for civilian purposes, saying “for now, the whole of Nigeria airspace is covered but the aircrafts operators had to cooperate with us.”

He also said that calibration, an aviation device that enables the aircraft to land safely, had been outsourced because Nigeria abandoned its aircraft that was configured for calibration for over two decades, and had become unserviceable.

He noted that though his agency needed to calibrate, there was no local company to calibrate, hence it had no choice than to go outside the country.

Chairman of committee, Rabiu Kwankwaso, urged the agency to train more pilots on calibration while efforts should be made to acquire more of the facilities since they were not too expensive.