The joy of the people of Kano was both uncontained and unconcealed last Friday as the remodelled international terminal of the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport was commissioned. The residents were thrilled to see the terminal, which had degenerated from the sublime to the ridiculous, restored back to its glory.
The people of Kano take great pride in the airport because the city is the birthplace of civil aviation in the country. It is on record that the first flight into the country took place when a British Royal Air Force plane made a reconnaissance flight into the ancient city of Kano from Khartoum in Sudan where the British Colonial Government was maintaining an active Royal Air force base.
Similarly, Kano holds the record of being the city in which the first commercial flight in Nigeria took place. This was in 1935 when an Imperial Airways aeroplane flight left the city for Lagos. However, despite its early exposure to aviation, air travellers using the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport Kano (MAKIA) had been going about with tales of woe because the airport had been subjected to gross neglect. This robbed it of its old acclaim as the international terminal became outdated and ineffective in service delivery.
Recognising the importance of the airport as the shortest route to Europe, Middle East and other parts of the world, the Federal Government made efforts to improve its infrastructure. The government embarked on power and water improvement, runway resurfacing and construction of an ultra-modern domestic terminal, but as a result of immense dilapidation, the efforts did not produce the much needed change. This prompted the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, to include the airport in the Airport Remodelling Project emplaced by President Goodluck Jonathan to arrest the infrastructural decay in Nigerian airports.
The project is in phases with 11 airports slated for remodelling in the initial phase. So far in the first phase of the exercise, three airports have been completely remodeled and commissioned. They are; the Domestic Terminal 1 of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, the General Aviation Terminal of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and the Benin Airport, Benin. The commissioning of the remodelled Malam Aminu Kano Airport brings the number to four.
In her address at the ceremony that was witnessed by the cream of the society, Princess Oduah said the airport remodelling project entailed the restructuring and in some cases, outright reconstruction of existing terminals in all the airports managed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria with a view to making them compliant with current international standards and practices, in terms of facilities and service delivery.
She added, “It is also the expectation of government that all the airport terminals so remodelled will begin to make more tangible contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), through increase in private investments at our airports.”
The minister pointed out that one of the cardinal points of the aviation sector master plan was to establish cargo airports in different geo-political zones of the country to act as processing zones for the exportation of perishable goods, especially food items to different parts of the world, adding that contract had been awarded for a perishable cargo area in the airport to facilitate the exportation of perishable goods from the airport to other parts of the world.
“This fact,” she stated, “should gladden the hearts of our citizens in the northern part of the country because it provides ample opportunity for the resuscitation of the popular groundnut pyramids in Kano and the start of a kind of revolution in the production of such cash crops grown mostly in the northern part of the country as potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, lettuce, tomatoes and millet. The positive economic effect of this reality on unemployment and urban-rural migration will be huge.”
The minister opined that with the elevation of the infrastructure in the airport, it would attract foreign airlines, thus making life a lot easier for international travellers in the city and its environ.
In his address at the event, Mr George Uriesi, Managing Director of FAAN, said the remodelled international terminal was a huge improvement on the old terminal with regard to ambience, facilities and seating capacity.
According to him, “The entire cooling system in the terminal was replaced with a new one, to ensure effective cooling at all times, especially at peak periods while a walkway was provided on the airside, to protect passengers from the elements since the terminal does not have avio bridges. This is aside from the installation of new conveyor belts, check-in counters, immigration counters, toilets, offices, shops and other related facilities.”
Uriesi said by upgrading the facilities in the airport the Federal Government had thrown a challenge to all stakeholders to turn Kano State and other surrounding states into industrial and economic havens in line with the aerotropolis concept that had turned airports all over the world to meeting points of economic development.
The guest of honour at the ceremony, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, while commissioning the remodelled terminal, lauded President Goodluck Jonathan and the Aviation Minister for the remodelled airports.
Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said, “CBN supports public officers that are doing something. There is no one that can go to Kano airport or Kaduna airport or Benin airport or Abuja airport and tell you that something is not happening.”
He, however, charged the ministry to imbibe a maintenance culture to preserve the standard of the airport.
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