Chinedu Eze

Airport passengers and travellers are worried about the dilapidated roads at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and have called on the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), to immediately fix the bad roads for the safety of road users.

Stakeholders at the Hajj Cargo Terminal of the airport also expressed disappointment at the chaos and arbitrary access to the facility, saying that it constitutes security challenge to both cargo and passenger terminals.

It has been documented that characters of questionable means can access the international terminal and indications have also shown that persons that breached the security apparatus to the airside of the international terminal, accessed the restricted area through the Hajj and Cargo Terminal.

Some of the stakeholders who spoke to THISDAY excoriated FAAN management for its seeming indifference and insensitivity to road users, positing that Lagos airport is the gateway of Nigeria, where many foreigners pass through every day to enter the country.

They noted that besides that, many Nigerians who have businesses at the airport ply through the bad roads and after going through such tortuous experience, they still meet their financial obligations to the agency, which is their landlord.

The worst of the roads is the barely one kilometre NIGAV Road, which is totally dilapidated with potholes that can drown an adult leg to the shin when it rains. The road branches off from the Ajao-International Terminal road, less than 100 feet to the Access Gate. Along that road are major businesses like Sahara Energy aviation fuel storage facility, the major oil marketing company; CITA; Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) Annexe; NIGAV Conference Centre; Afloat Hydrants; and others.

Another dilapidated road is the one that leads from the Access Gate roundabout to Pilot Lounge Road. From the roundabout to the end of the road maybe two kilometres but since early this year work has been going on at the road and it has not been completed. Many of those who spoke to THISDAY, expressed lack of commitment to completing the rehabilitation of the road where the FAAN Training Centre is located on the left from the roundabout. Also located on that axis, are FAAN power house; the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Annex; and the Quits Aviation Company, where Legend Hotel and Execujet are located.

At the left hand side are catering companies, a hotel, the Cathedral and commercial vehicles car park, FAAN Staff car park and the multi-story car park. It is also a critical road that leads to the airside, where bowsers, catering vehicles drive to the tarmac and beyond that is the pilot lounge. That area of the road towards the pilot lounge and in front of EAN and Dominion Air facilities is completely broken down.

The General Aviation Terminal (GAT) road also needs rehabilitation, especially the area towards the exit to Agege Moto Road, where commercial vehicles engage in arbitrary parking of their vehicles.

On the Hajj and Cargo Terminal, some of the stakeholders who spoke to THISDAY, expressed worry at the degeneration of facilities at the terminal and the unruly conduct of the users, noting that one of the challenges of the terminal is poor human management.

But while commending FAAN for the efforts it has put in recent time to rein activities at the facility and to curb on-going excesses in the use of the terminal, the Director of Operations, Cargolux and the President, Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives of Nigeria (AFERN), Dr. Kingsley Nwokoma, told THISDAY that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos remained the major gateway in Nigeria and ought to abide by international standards even in its cargo operation, adding that the road to the terminal needs rehabilitation. He however said the easy entry and exit of individuals not properly screened would continue to expose the airport to security breaches.

Nwokoma said there should be control of vehicular movement at the cargo terminal, noting that as it is now, the facility is characterized by random blockade of the major roads and there are no effective management of movements at the terminal.

“If you travel to other countries, but let me cite example with our neighbour, Ghana, when you go to the cargo terminal you see orderliness. Vehicles do not crowd the place as we witness them here in Lagos. If you look at Ghana, Kenya, you don’t see people moving aimlessly all over the place. Here, there are porous areas miscreants can take advantage of around the Hajj and Cargo Terminal.

“This place needs to be sanitized. At the gate, anybody has import would have given it to the agent. You don’t need to enter the terminal. The terminal ought to be very quiet. If you have import, you will be given Airways Bill Number which you will use to track your import. You just input it in your system and begin to monitor it. In Nigeria, you see a lot of clearing agents running over the place. We don’t need the crowd and the drama,” he said.

He also advised that FAAN should rehabilitate the road inside the terminal, saying that it needs total upgrade.

Another stakeholder who operates a cargo company who spoke to THISDAY on the condition of anonymity, said that “the entire cargo terminal network is chaotic”, noting that activities at the facility are not organised, adding that the whole airport is full of movement hurdles for a user of the airport who is doing business.

According to him, the entire road network is dilapidated and there is haphazard movement of trucks without rule of engagement, where a truck can stop at the middle of the road in the terminal and reload goods and other motorists will be waiting for the truck to complete reloading of goods and leave the road.

He regretted that driving inside the terminal can delay someone for up to one hour because there is uncontrollable movement of vehicles and around the same road are those stitching bags for export of goods and even at the parking lot are food sellers and other businesses, which sometimes spill into the major thoroughfare.

“They can be doing reloading from the ramp to the cargo warehouse. If anybody comes to the terminal you cannot say when you will leave. There is no restricted or dedicated road for cars, trucks and others and nobody has absolute control. In fact, the clearing agents’ associations: Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANCLA) and National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders are even more powerful than FAAN. Without their stickers, you cannot move around at the Hajj and Cargo Terminal. So, you have to buy FAAN stickers and that of the other clearing agents before you can enter some areas at the terminal. In fact, they determine what happens at the terminal,” he said.

An official of one of the major handling companies told THISDAY that the road inside the cargo terminal will continue to break down at short intervals until concrete is used to rehabilitate the road because of the heavy-duty trucks that use the road, projecting that if serious work is done on it, it would take many years before it would break down again.

Meanwhile, a senior FAAN official spoke to THISDAY, dismissing the issues pointed out by the stakeholders.

According to the FAAN official, the Director of Cargo Services, Mr. Lekan Thomas, is making drastic, positive changes at the terminal. To control the influx of freight forwarders to the terminal, FAAN had insisted that they must register with the agency with all their security and other details.

“We have started the reorganisation of the terminal. We have made registration of freight forwarders compulsory. We want to document everybody and cut down the number of people that have access to the terminal. We are also reinforcing security structurally to ensure that there is no security breach. And I must tell you that the terminal is way better than it used to be before. Thomas is doing a lot to bring desired changes at the terminal,” the official said.