The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) runway may be closed to traffic any moment from now to enable the government rehabilitate it.
The federal government has already deployed about N1 billion to urgently carry out the rehabilitation of the dilapidated runway.
Airline Operators had decried the state of the runway in the nation’s second busiest airport, calling on government to fix it to prevent disaster. However, it was reliably gathered that the Minister of State, Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika had set up a committee to supervise the rehabilitation work.
An informed source hinted that the ministerial committee is expected to schedule the maintenance dates, which are expected to run from days to weeks.
Part of the committee’s work would be to also decide whether the runway would be closed daily or some hours of the day during the rehabilitation work.
While the rehabilitation is going on, some flights would be diverted to Kaduna International Airport which was said to have been designated as alternative airport.
The source said, “Government is not unaware of the bad state of the runway. So government is making urgent move to start the rehabilitation of the runway which would commence anytime soon as fund to that effect has been approved.”
The Minister is also expected to interface with the National Security Adviser to agree on when the work would commence.
When contacted, the acting General Manager, Corporate Affairs of FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu confirmed that money had been released for the rehabilitation work, saying government would restore the runway to international standards.
