By Charles Igbo
Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, is in pains. His plans to bequeath the State with an Airport is being frustrated. He had planned to be through with its building before leaving office in May 2023. His plan, really, was to finish it by May 2022.
But it is being frustrated over funds. Desperate, he is begging Buhari for money. A whopping N10 billion. And not sure what Buhari’s response will be, he is forced to write a letter to the Minister for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, appealing to him to help convince Mr President to help him with the money.
In the letter dated 7th September 2021, and titled Re-Notification of my letter to Mr. President seeking his financial assistance to purchase our airport equipment”, Governor Umahi describes the project as huge, but bemoans that the State had no money to buy the required equipment to make the Airport functional.
The airport will not belong to the State, as Umahi has promised to hand it over to the Federal Government.
Part of the letter to the Minister reads:
“We are building one of the largest airport (sic) in Nigeria using concrete to build our runway.
“We intend to complete this project by May 2022 but we do not have money to buy the airport equipment hence our appeal to Mr President for Ten Billion Naira (10,000,000,000,00) to purchase the equipment.
“We shall handover the airport to the Federal Government on completion to concession and supervise.”
Many have criticised Umahi for committing huge sums of money to the airport in the face of the State’s dwindling finances. They insist it is not a priority, decrying the seeming competition between some States to waste money on building airports which are not viable.
One of them asked: “Why do you start an airport when you cannot equip it? Why waste money? How viable will the airport be when the Enugu International Airport is just a stone throw away?”
Only the Governor can answer the questions.
