For many years, Nigeria’s aviation sector was in shambles. Poor equipment, decrepit airport facilities, unreliable revenue generation and collection system and unfriendly workforce, all combined to make the sector distressed.
To say the least, the state of the country’s over 22 airports owned by the federal government before 2011 was deplorable. And though attempts were made to reposition the sector by the previous administrations, the conditions of the airports did not change much.
But a little over two years ago the sector began to see a remarkable change. For instance, 22 airports across the country got needed facelift that changed travel experience for most passengers. Not only that, there has been a boost for infrastructure in the sector with replacement of obsolete equipment for modern one. To boot, global players were attracted as investors into the sector. The Chinese, for example, signed an
MOU with Nigeria to finance the construction of 11 new state-of-the-arts airports across the nation, out of which 6 will be for perishables.
For the BASA funds, there was a presidential approval for Presidential Priority Projects in Aviation, which conveyed approval for utilization of the sum of N60m in the BASA Fund and was submitted to the National Assembly for appropriation to be supplemented by a further N14.6b from the IGR of Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
Mamman Dogondawa,
No.65, 22 Road, Festac Town, Lagos
