Hadi Sirika, the minister of state for aviation has said that he will resign if the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja airport runway is not ready in six weeks period from the period when it was closed.
The airport which was shut down on the 8th of March, was done to carry out major repair of its runway and expectedly, the airport should be ready on19th of April 2017.
Speaking during the Aviation Round Table, (ART), yesterday, Sirika said he cannot be stupid to take a decision that involves the lives of over 180million Nigerians and disappoint them at the end of the day.
He reiterated that work is on-going in Abuja airport, adding that the six weeks will indeed be six weeks for the airport to be ready again for international flight operations.
He said the decision of shutting down the airport and choosing Kaduna airport as its alternate airport was not a political decision but was as a result of security, proximity and convenience concerns for the Nigerian people.
“We have budgeted N150million to charter cargo airplanes to buy and bring in some of the materials we don’t have in Nigeria. We want to build something we can sustain. The runway will be built to last for over ten years,” he added.
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