By Francis Ogwo
About N15 billion has been budgeted by the Federal Government to be spent on the construction of a second runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja while N10 billion would go into Katsina Airport to set up aircraft and machine maintenance station.
These are both planned for 2021 as disclosed by Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Smart Adeyemi, over the weekend, after defending the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Aviation before the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
According to Adeyemi, the safety of travelling passengers prompted the budget of N15 billion while the second runway would check wastage of aviation fuel while adding that when completed, the runway would save time spent by pilots in trying to land at the airport of its designation without necessarily looking for the nearest airport to land because of unavailability of space in the airport of its designation.
“In my budget presentation, I noted that we need a second runway in Abuja which will save us from some of the occasions when aircraft would have to be hovering and maybe some of them running out of fuel because some of them tried to go to a nearby airport to land.
“So, when you have a second runway, you are guaranteeing the safety of passengers and the aircraft and you are equally minimizing cost because when plane don’t hover around, you can adequately calculate the quantity of gas that is required.
“So it is a good thing to have a second runway. It is what ought to have been done about 10 years ago by previous administrations. We have that as one major aspect of it.
“We equally have proposal for N15 billion for the second way and we have another N10 billion for Katsina Airport, where we intend to set up aircraft and machine maintenance station,” Adeyemi added.
Nnamdi Azikiwe International in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria is the main airport serving the Nigerian capital city and was named after Nigeria’s first President, Nnamdi Azikiwe. The airport is approximately 20 km (12 mi) west of Abuja, and has an international and a domestic terminal that share its single runway.
