By Suleiman Anyalewechi
National Assembly members from Enugu State on Monday April 28,2025, threw their weight behind moves to concession the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, by the Federal Government.
A statement from the NASS caucus jointly issued by the Eight House of Representatives members from the State, described the planned concession of the facility as a potential driver of the economy of the South East region.
The Source reports that there have been a measure of controversy surrounding Federal Government’s plans to to concession the airport to some private operators of recent.
Some critics of the planned concession questioned the alleged plans to concession the facility for, allegedly, up to an 80-year period, as well as a lack of a clear cut operational framework for such an exercise.
However, while admitting that plans to concession the airport are a foot, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, noted that the duration of the concession is yet to be determined.
According to Keyamo, most of the airports in the country are currently running at a huge loss yearly, noting that the concession exercise is meant to ensure that they break even without depending on Government subsidies.
The Enugu Federal law makers, applauded the Federal Government initiatives towards making the Enugu airport and others self-sustaining.
They have, therefore, urged all the relevant authorities to speed-up the concession process so that the people of the South East will begin to reap the benefits.
Similarly, the Caucus appealed to the people of the region to support the initiative which it argued would fast-track development, through the attraction of investment opportunities.
“Due to poor capital investment, the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, AIIA Enugu, remains partially completed and, indeed, an International airport only in name over two decades since it was designated as such by the Federal Government.
“Critical components such as the cargo terminal, runway, and international terminal among others are either non-existent or require completion or upgrade.
“Businesses and the people of the South-east, especially, have borne the brunt of these inadequacies, which manifest in the paucity of international flights and intermittent closure of the airport for repairs of the runway as recently witnessed.
“Therefore, we believe that the concession of the airport as currently being processed by the Federal Government is the only realistic approach to attracting adequate resources to build the requisite infrastructure ,and expand existing ones to place AIIA in the league of other international airports around the world”,the Caucus stated.
According to them, concession of the facility is totally different from a privatization exercise, as being thought by some critics.
The law makers noted that concession only involves a well tenured Public-private Partnership, PPP, framework designed to attract private investment with a view to improving the infrastructural facilities, while the Government retains ownership, regulatory and supervisory authority.
Instructively, the position of the Enugu NASS caucus came same day the airport was reopened to traffic after a two-week closure.
The facility was, on April 18, closed to enable the authorities carry out some repair works on the runway.
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