Unions in the aviation industry have warned selected concessionaires of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja and the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano, to withdraw from investing in the project.
The unions say that their involvement in the process is to their own peril.
Last week, the ministry of aviation announced that the Corporacion American Airport Consortium emerged the preferred bidder for concession of Abuja, and Kano International Airports.
In a joint statement on Wednesday by Ocheme Aba, representative of the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE, Abdulrazak Saidu of the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals, and Emeka Njoku of National Union of Pensioners, FAAN Branch, the unions said that anyone or entity that may proceed to commit any form of resources to such endeavor is engaging in sheer wastefulness, as the claimed approval of the FEC, if such really exists, is a non-starter.
“We wish to use this medium to make the Nigerian and International public aware that the action of the Federal Government in the above regards is an exercise in abnormality and absurdity, albeit in futility,” the statement reads.
The unions said they are convinced that, members of the Federal Executive Council were overcome by the spirit of Camaraderie as institutionalised in the present posture of the outgoing government for last minute bonanza for its principal officers, and so failed to scrutinize the request brought before it by the Minister of Aviation.
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“If the Council did it would have availed itself of publicly available information and materials which our unions have persistently put before members of the Council and the Public about the many legally, economically and socially untenable aspects of the airports concession program of the Ministry of Aviation, and which are inimical to both orderly development of Nigerian airports and Nigeria’s social economic interest”.
Unions highlight the main issues in contention pertaining to the purported airports concession to include faulty foundation, contempt of court, lack of transparency, and one man show project.
“The Ministry of Aviation which carried out the concession has no authority to do so. To begin with, the Federal Ministry of Aviation (and Aerospace) does not own, or run, any airport in Nigeria. By the dictates of the governing Act of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), ownership and management of all Federal Government airports are fully vested in the Authority; not the Ministry.
“On the other hand, the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) procedure document states, with respect to the agency that wishes to concession a facility that, “The public entity should have enabling authority to transfer its responsibility – enabling legislative and policy framework OR an Administrative Order to that effect.
“By the combined import of the FAAN Act and the ICRC procedures manual, it is evidently manifest that the entire airports concession is based on an incurably faulty foundation.
“For, there is no doubt that it is the Federal airports Authority of Nigeria, not the Ministry of Aviation, that has power to transfer its responsibility to a would be concessionaire. It is also FAAN, not the Ministry, which has the requisite legislative & policy framework for such,” the statement read in part.
