By Uche Mbah
The terminals of the Murtala Muhammed international airport, Lagos, was today rocked by protests from the Aviation Unions who are unhappy with the plans by the Federal government to concession airports in the country as a means of combating the effect of the COVID 19 pandemics on the industry.
Domestic Flight operations were, however, not affected by the peaceful protest as passengers were seen embarking on their trips.
Last week, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Saraki, had said that only a few Airports are viable, and that government needed to concession the others to be able to cope with the skyrocketing costs of running these airports.
But the National Union of Air Transport Employs (NUATE), the Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals (ANAP), Air Transports Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and Nigeria Union of Pensioners unanimously rejected government position, claiming it will lead to massive job losses.
Currently, it is estimated that FAAN staff, both full time and otherwise, may run into about 18 million people. These will end up like the Nigerian Airways staff, who have been at the short end of the collapse of the National carrier.
The Chairman of NUATE, Mohammed Zakaria, one of the leaders of the protests, quickly recalled
that the fate that happened to NEPA, Nigerian Airways, and Nitel will follow FAAN staff in the wake of the concession
“We want to continue as FAAN. The government owns everything, but we are saying no to concession,” he said and added that airports’ concession poses security threats as well as the loss of revenues to the government.
Besides concession, the protesters are also against the move by the government to move all FAAN staff who retired from April 1, 2014, to PenCom, claiming that FAAN has not been remitting money to PenCom, and therefore the pensioners will be caught in the administrative entanglements.
FAAN is said to be owing Pencom N200 billion in remittances.
“We spent our time and energy to build the airports, the so-called investors cannot just come and take over the facilities and enrich themselves without involving the key stakeholders.
“The Outline Business Case (OBC) was prepared since 2017 and only made available this August after they have concluded every aspect of the deal. They are telling us lies,” Aliyu said.
He cited the concession plan of the MMA2 that failed, and ended up in litigation. It involved Wale Babalakin, SAN,who was recently suspended as the Council Chairman of the University Lagos in the controversial power tussle over who becomes the Ag.Vice-chancellor of the University.
