Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has defended plans by the Federal Government to remodel Terminal One of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos at the cost of N712billion.
Reports that the federal executive council approved the sum of N712billion for the renovation project.
The action has, however, sparked outrage from citizens and opposition leader’s
But speaking during an interview on Channels TV on Sunday, the senior advocate of Nigeria, who was a guest on Channels Television’s , said the airport terminal, built over four decades ago, has gone rusty.
“The roof of the airport is leaking; the place is decrepit and smelly. You see people selling Indomie and all kinds of kiosks erected there. The ceilings are failing, and the carousels are not working because their parts are not in the market anymore,” he said.
He argued that the airport upgrade would be funded “through the Renewed Hope Infrastructural Funding. It is not a budgetary kind of expenditure. It is from the special infrastructure fund”.
“This government promised Nigerians major infrastructural upgrades across Nigeria, from the savings we are having now from the subsidy removal and the floating of the naira,” he stated, adding that the project would last 22 months.
The minister said that without the rebuilding of the airport terminal, many foreign airlines would abandon the country’s route.
“Without this, some international airlines will threaten to stop flight to your country when you don’t have a good airport, a good runway, because it affects insurance because when the runways are not good, the terminals are good, the insurance will go up because they will say that place is not safe to fly to,” he said.
He stressed that upon completion, the terminal would rival continental aviation hubs in Ethiopia, South Africa and other country.
He said, “As it is today, you cannot land in Lagos (local airport) and try to connect to an international flight, maybe to Ghana
“Lagos is not a hub, but that was the plan in 1977 when it was designed and in 1979 when it was commissioned. You cannot process one passenger from one terminal to another, so that has stunted the growth of aviation.
“What we are trying to do in Lagos now is to make Lagos a very modern airport and create a proper hub to begin to compete with other hubs in Africa…So, we want to completely pull down Terminal One.
“It is not a refurbishment; we are tearing it down, only the pillars will remain, the carcass, the decking. Everything will go, and they are going to redesign now.”
