Police, Airforce take over MMIA tollgate, as FAAN, I-CUBE lose revenue

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.

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha

Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha is the Aviation Correspondent at BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of BusinessDay Newspapers. She is also the Deputy Editor, BusinessDay Weekender Magazine, the Saturday Weekend edition of BusinessDay. She holds a BSC in Mass Communication from the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Masters degree in Marketing at the University of Lagos. As the lead writer on the aviation desk, Ifeoma is responsible and in charge of the three weekly aviation and travel pages in BusinessDay and BDSunday. She also overseas and edits all pages of BusinessDay Saturday Weekender. She has written various investigative, features and news stories in aviation and business related issues and has been severally nominated for award in the category of Aviation Writer of the Year by the Nigeria Media Nite-Out awards; one of the Nigeria’s most prestigious media awards ceremonies. Ifeoma is a one-time winner of the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award under the 'Aviation Writer of the Year' Category. She is the 2025 Eloy Award winner under the Print Media Journalist category. She has undergone several journalism trainings by various prestigious organisations. Ifeoma is also a fellow of the Female Reporters Leadership Fellowship of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism.