The Federal Executive Council (FEC), on Monday approved a total of N4.442billion for the upgrade of the Terminal B at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport, and the installation of command and control centers in major airports across the country, as well as the purchase of essential spare parts equipment.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace, Festus Keyamo disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the council meeting presided by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Terminal B is one of the terminals serving domestic flights at the airport, while the command and control centers also known as
Airport Operations Control Centers (AOCC), serve as the central hubs that oversee and coordinate all airport activities to ensure safety, efficiency, and smooth operations.
According to Minister Keyamo “The first one was for the upgrade and rehabilitation of Terminal B at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. I am sure you know the terminal B, the domestic wing, where most of the facilities are actually very old and obsolete.”
The Minister decried that the chillers at the Terminal B of the airport were also not at their best since most of them have outlived their lifespan, the carousels and a couple of other infrastructure.
“So, we plan to upgrade and rehabilitate that seminar and council graciously approved our memo for the upgrade and rehabilitation of that terminal, The cost is at the cost of N2.442billion.
“We also brought a prayer for the provision of command and control center at various regional airports across the country, and those airports are Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Kano, Enugu airport and headquarters,” the Aviation Minister added.
Keyamo explained that the decision to install the command and control centers across all of the airports was to meet the requirements of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the very modern requirements of the organization.
“That has been awarded at the cost of N2billion. These two were graciously approved,” Minister Keyamo said.
He explained that “The other one that was approved was for the contract for the procurement of critical navigation navigational aids, spare parts.
“We had a problem whereby most of the spare parts used for navigational aids, some of them, when they go obsolete or they go bad, will have to go through the process of having to get across to the original equipment manufacturers, the OEMs, to try and get in this equipment. And sometimes they take months for them to come in, and within that time, we’ll find our air traffic controllers struggling to ensure that they keep our SP safe.
“So, we have a program where some of the very, very equipments, or parts of those equipments that are like the ones when you are servicing, those parts that you use all the time. We brought a proposal to have the spare parts with us, so that it will be very easy for us to replace some of those spare parts whenever any of these equipments need them.
“And council graciously approved that them also, and most of those equipments are coming from, of course, we all know the Giants, equipment manufacturing giants Indra-Norway, and they’re coming for at the sum of 650 4000 US dollars, plus another 201 million, 411,364 naira.”
