Officers and men of the Police and the Airforce have been drafted to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos access tollgate to ward off the warring parties in the management of the collection of tolls.
The security officers were deployed there on Tuesday morning following the clash between staff of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Aviation unions and the contractor handling the collection of tolls at the access gate.
The deployment has not only ensured sanity to the area, it has also brought a sigh of relief to motorists using the tollgate as they pass freely without paying tolls.
With this development, both FAAN and the contractor are losing the revenue accruing to them.
On Monday, workers of FAAN took over the management of the MMIA access gate from Integrated Intelligent Imaging West Africa Limited (I-CUBE), one year after the expiration of the contract.
The workers in their hundreds under the supervision of the four aviation unions besieged the access gate as early as 7 am Monday and took over the control of ticketing points from ICUBE managers.
Abdulrazak Saidu, secretary general, Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP), said the takeover of the gate by security officers would not stop their insistence that the contractor be relieved of the contract since the contract had expired.
According to Saidu, “the Minister of Aviation and the Management of FAAN are aware of the action we took yesterday because we told them in a meeting we held with them last year that we do not want the contractor again. The money he is paying is too small;we want to review it.
“The Unions will meet this morning; we cannot allow concessionaires to continue to milk FAAN dry with the token they pay as concession agreement.”
Toluwaleke Abajingin, manager of the toll collection, Integrated Intelligent Imaging West Africa (I-CUBE) on Monday expressed shock over the access gate takeover in the early hours of Monday by the workers and their union leaders.
He said the case was in court between one Rosepine Integrated limited, FAAN and I-CUBE.
The boss stated that I-CUBE had paid FAAN up to date and were never informed about any upward review of the contract or otherwise.
