By Dickson Omobola
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, Thursday, disclosed that the pilot and crew of the private aircraft that landed on a road in the Ogwashi-Uku area of Delta State are still in the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS, saying the outcome of the investigation would be shared with the President.
Keyamo also revealed that plans were underway to construct a superhighway that would run behind the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and connect to the Mafoluku area.
He spoke on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, where he also allayed fears over the safety of Nigeria’s airspace, adding that more unviable airports would be concessioned.
On airspace safety, he said: “If you take the volume of air travel that happens in Nigeria vis-a-vis these isolated incidents you mentioned, then you will realise that we are dealing with less than one per cent of one or two incidents here that did not even result in fatalities. That means our airspace is very safe. Since 1960, it is under President Bola Tinubu administration that we have scored the highest in terms of International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, audits. For the first time in history, we scored 91.4 per cent this year in terms of our safety and oversight standards.”
On the private jet that landed on a road in Asaba, he said: “As I speak with you, it was a security breach, and we are treating it as such. The pilot and the crew are still in the DSS detention till today going through rigorous questioning.”
On plans for a superhighway behind the Lagos airport, he said: “Lagos State is coming to a massive plan. When you are coming from Iyana Ipaja, there will be a bypass by the Lagos State government, a superhighway that will go around the back of the airport and come out around the Mafoluku area. It is a Public-Private Partnership, PPP, because we are also working with them, as they have to now get around concessions. That swamp at the back will now be a super highway to open up that part of Lagos, and we are working with the Lagos State government to make it happen.”
On when domestic airlines would begin to feel the impact of debt relief recently announced by government, he said: “They are beginning to see the impact. For many of them, we are not even so much against them, because we try to understand their situation. Right now, like they said, our eyes are red. One airline alone is owing us N14 billion. If you take the 30 per cent, it is still a huge amount. And then most of the agencies cannot perform their functions and government needs revenue.
“We run the airport, we run navigational services, we built the airport, we have the runway, we have everything, we run power. It is not free, but many of them want it to be free. We understand their problems but government must also earn revenue.
“I called a meeting and appealed to them to say, make a schedule of paying these things. And in the last three weeks or so, many of them paid about 10 per cent of their debts.”
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