ON ANAMBRA AIRPORT, The True Reality on ground
By Ambassador Elijah Onyeagba.
I have refrained from commenting on this issue because I wanted to speak from the point of view of information and not from emotions or politics. Now from a very informed perspective, here is the true position from an Aviation Expert. Official memos on this issue will follow!
“The reality is that the airport is not ready, what it has at the moment is a runway and a makeshift terminal. They still have not concluded with NAMA on the training and deployment of Air Traffic Controllers, the navigational equipment (ILS, DME, VOR) have not been calibrated (all the above is NAMA related.
On FAAN, they have not trained, certified and deployed AvSec personnel for airport security, they have also not installed security equipment, then finally on NCAA, the overall certification of the airport which will be dependent on NAMA and FAAN completing their own tasks. You have to note that this is a state airport from a state initiative, but all the above roles are federal roles that they have to liaise with agencies and pay for like any private venture, thank you. Hope the above summary helps, thank you.
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The airport is no where close to commercial operation, even Air Peace chairman can testify to that, so their propaganda is unfounded; an airport is beyond civil works, which is what Anambra State government has done, that is all hardware. It’s like buying a computer without operating system.
Aviation and airport operation are safety operations that are regulated (beyond Nigeria) by ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), so NCAA (Nigeria Civil Aviation Organisation) itself is overseen and certified by ICAO, and any violation of such trust can lead to NCAA loosing its class A certification status, which will be bad for Nigeria, as all major international airlines will stop flying to Nigeria, thank you.”
I am now ready to engage on the Airport Bruhaha. Only factual and dispassionate discuss please! When they go low, we must stay high!
From Ambassador Elijah Onyeagba.