Nigeria’s Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has said he would resign if the repair of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja runway was not completed in six weeks as planned.
Sirika made the statement on Monday alongside the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who accused some people of spreading misinformation about the repair, stating that the Federal Government was not planning to extend the 19th April deadline for the completion of the project.
The duo spoke at a special session of Aviation Round Table, ART, held in Lagos.
Sirika assured that so much work had gone into the consultancy and procurement of materials prior to the commence of the repair project in order to ensure that the six weeks deadline was not extended.
According to him, “Nobody has extended anything on the Abuja airport runway reopening deadline; our six weeks is six weeks.
“I believe we took the right decision and I am very comfortable we will achieve the six weeks target. I will resign if we don’t meet the deadline.”
The Minister stated that once completed, the runway would last for the next 10 years before it would be spoilt in such a way as to necessitate its shutdown.
Explaining why Kaduna Airport was chosen as an alternate airport to the Abuja facility, he said “Minna is closer to Abuja, but Kaduna has a straight road where Minna doesn’t. Kaduna has the facilities; it has enough hotels. It was the capital of Northern Nigeria and it hosted the world cup. And that was why we opted for Kaduna instead of Minna, Jos or Kano airports.”
Recall that the Federal Government had shut down the Abuja airport with effect from March 7 while Abuja bound traffic was diverted to the Kaduna International Airport. The contractors handling the repair works had, at inception of the project, promised to deliver same by April 19, 2017.
On his part, Mohammed said, “I heard about the rumour that the reopening of the Abuja airport will be extended by 18 weeks; that is not true. After six weeks the Abuja airport will be reopened.”
He said the maintenance of the Abuja airport runway had long been neglected by successive governments, a trend that made it imperative to shut it down completely if a proper repair work that would last had to be done.
Mohammed noted that about three weeks out of the six weeks scheduled for the airport runway repair had already gone and that work the work on the airport is about 50 percent complete.
