Aviation professionals have rejected the decision of the Federal Government to concession the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. The groups spoke yesterday under the aegis of the Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Branch.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had recently said the Federal Executive Council, FEC, has approved the concessioning of the Lagos and Abuja International Airports for better management. In the joint briefing by Secretary-General of ANAP, Rasaq Saidu and General Secretary of NUP, Emeka Njoku, they said past records of the  Federal Government on concessioning agreements have not gone as planned as they were riddled with corruption.

ANAP and NUP have therefore urged the Federal Government to reconstitute the governing board of directors of aviation parastatals dissolved by the immediate past administration to ensure probity, transparency, blocking reign of impunity and corruption. They also said they were never consulted before the concession decision was made, contrary to Aviation Minister’s earlier claim. ” ANAP and NUP maintained. They expressed the view that it is possible that the Federal Executive Council has not have been adequately briefed before agreeing to the decision to concession the airports.

“We have made in-depth findings about other government-owned companies and agencies already said to have either been out rightly sold, privatized or concessioned and discovered that those firms were not and are still not properly managed, other than to compound the running of those places such as the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), steel companies, railways and others,” both associations said in their joint statement.

ANAP and NUP alleged that in FAAN, more than 80% of the internally generated revenue (IGR) are under questionable agreements entered by previous governments and managements and “we thought that if the ‘Change’ manifesto of the present Federal Government was to take effect, it should have positive impact on the aviation sector.’’

The Vanguard