Abuja Airport ready to take off

Apr 18, 2017: Muhtar Usman, director general of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) recently informed that Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja runway project was 99 percent completed.

After carrying out an audit of the runway Usman and Ariyo Akinfenwa, Minister of State for Aviation, informed everyone about the runway.

Usman, said, "NCAA along with the airport owner, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), conducted an inspection. We were able to see that the job has been done well up to at least 99 percent completion. We believe that the remaining work will be completed on or before the official opening date."

"The findings have been communicated to the owner of the airport, FAAN. We are expecting a corrective action plan that will come with timelines that will address those issues. But those items that we found are not safety critical and then cannot affect the opening of the airport scheduled on April 19. The job has been well done. The technology employed is the latest and we believe Nigerians will be happy," he added.

Saleh Dunoma, managing director, FAAN, said "The inspection has been conducted. Since the beginning of the project, this is the major inspection that was conducted. We have been working in collaboration with the NCAA, but of course, we have to adhere to procedures and the procedure is that after the completion or near completion of the project, an inspection will be conducted."

"The findings will be submitted immediately. We will work together with the contractor to make sure that all these findings are corrected within the timelines that we are going to agree with NCAA. And of course, after the final inspection will be conducted then, we believe we will be given a clean bill of health by the NCAA." 

An official of Julius Berger who was part of the inspection, Lars Richter, expressed satisfaction with the level of completion of the project.

Richter, said, " It was quite a bit challenging to finish the project within six weeks. At the beginning, everybody in Nigeria was concerned. Not everybody was happy that the airport was closed for six weeks. But we, together with FAAN, the contractors have delivered the runway within six weeks and it was a good cooperation because the task was really tight."