OUR SHAMEFUL AIRPORT

OK, so this is Nigeria, we know there is a lack of maintenance culture everywhere, but have you passed through the Muritala Mohamed International Airport recently? Did you feel the heat and note the air conditioners not working? the ceiling tiles that are missing which makes you look up all the time hoping that rats don’t fall on your head, the escalator that is broken or the only working conveyor belt that moves at worse than snail speed and breaks down intermittently, and the unpaved airport car park and surrounds that gets flooded and muddy when it rains and makes it difficult to push your cart?

 Let me just simply focus on the most basic infrastructure that an airport must have, working toilets!  When you alight from the plane, you have to wade through the long lines for immigration and then wait for another couple of hours or so to collect your baggage and there is still no working toilet in sight!  For their own safety, passengers should use the airplane toilet before landing. You know the announcement that the pilot makes prior to landing that this is your last time to use the wash room before landing; this ought to be modified for planes landing in Lagos – “This is your last opportunity to use the toilets, be warned, there is no working toilet in the terminals”.   Let us examine this issue of toilets. So there is work in progress, how is it that all the toilets have to be cordoned off at the same time? Why can’t the works occur in sections? Let us even say that the contractor or the supervising engineer is not smart enough to do a good project planning, why the stench? Did someone not clean or prepare the site properly before work commenced? Or perhaps some people sneaked in to use the toilets while it is under repairs? Do you blame them?

Who is to blame? What have the big wigs of the country got to do with this? This is too far removed from their oversight you may say. No it is not I argue and here is my argument. From the bottom-up, it is obvious that the contractors handling the project are not in control. Whose responsibility is it to supervise this contractor and the supervising engineer? Someone in the Airport authority? Are both the engineer and the contractor are not aware of what is happening? I don’t really know the chain of command but certainly the management team or managing director of the airport is responsible for the contracts and the jobs being executed in the airport. Does he/she ask questions? Does he/she make surprise visits to the airport? Does he/she not see the state of the airport or the lack of progress of the works? My guess is that the management of the airport reports to the aviation ministry. Again, what is the role of the ministry? Do they not know what is going on in the busiest and most important airport in West Africa? Do they not question the lack of progress? It is clear the required budget and funds from the federal government and contracts have been awarded for the upgrade and renovation of the airport. Great! But is that it? Can someone not be made accountable for the shoddy work that is being done? Do the “ogas at the top” not pass through the airport? What do they see? Must they wait for people like us to point out the issues to them?  So many questions, but no answers! A very sad state of affairs for our international airport