A leading civil Rights advocacy group – HUMAN RIGHTS
WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the Federal government
for deliberately refusing to invest substantially in the building of aviation
infrastructures at the Akannu Ibiam International Airport and for closing down
the airport without commencing repair works several weeks after.
The Rights group has also condemned the tepid and
unsustainable excuse that lack of fund is the reason for not commencing repair
works to improve safety facilities at the only international gateway to Igbo
land South East of Nigeria several weeks after Nigerians were deceived that the
facility needed to be shut so as to enable government do the necessary repair
works. HURIWA demanded explanation from the Aviation authority for openly lying
that work had started few days back only for vigilant media to visit the
facility Yesterday to discover that Nigerians were sold a dummy since not a
single repair works is going on there.
HURIWA has therefore decided to petition the National
Assembly to protest the deliberate scheming of the minister of Aviation, the
Katsina born cousin of the President Alhaji Hadi Sirika to frustrate passengers
going and coming from South East of Nigeria and subject them to horrendous
ordeals even when the closure of Abuja international Airport for similar
repairs did not face similar fate of shortage or lack of operational fund.
HURIWA said the government decided to abandon the South East of Nigeria and
specifically the shut airport because the South East politicians have not
followed up and mounted pressure on government to do the needful and end the
denial of the fundamental human rights to freedom of safe movements to the
citizens of South East of Nigeria.
“It is unbelievable that the current administration has
extended the willful marginalization of the South East from the lack of
strategic security and top federal appointments to the shutting down of the
only international entry to the South East which is the Akannu Ibiam
international Airport. When Abuja international Airport was shut for repairs,
the Kaduna Airport got rapid face lift gulping billions and the Federal Highway
to Kaduna was fixed even as special security forces were deployed to provide
twenty four hours security services for all passengers. But the Akannu Ibiam
international Airport was shut down and for months there has been no repair
works and the Enugu/Owerri Federal Highway has collapsed, the state of
insecurity is so high on the same stretch of road with suspected armed Fulani
kidnappers operating within that axis but the government simply neglected the
Igbo speaking nationality as if they are second class citizens.”
“HURIWA will not be deceived by the propaganda of the
Aviation minister that funding hitches may have caused delay in the
rehabilitation of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, which was shut
down by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on August 24 this
year. Does it then means that the Minister for
Aviation, Hardi Siriki who was in Enugu in August who told reporters after a
meeting with governors and stakeholders in the South East zone that the airport
would be reopened before Christmas was simply lying? Was this not the same
minister who had assured that the rehabilitation work would come with
installation of lighting devices and other gadgets to enable the airport to
operate night flights that could culminate in additional flights? Why sell the
dummy of lack of fund when the same treatment was never extended to Abuja
airport?"
HURIWA recalled that six weeks after closure of the
airport, reconstruction work is yet to begin, even as there are no indications
that the contractor would mobilize to site soon because as the media found out the
contractor that handled the dilapidated runway in 2010 was afraid of mobilizing
to site as he was not sure of adequate funding, especially since there would
not be any break in the work when it commences.
Recall that the Ohanaeze Ndigbo had earlier raised the
alarm over the closure of the airport without funding and award of contract for
its rehabilitation, expressing fears that the deadline may be missed.
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