LAST Saturday bulldozers took to the buildings around the new terminal under construction and knocked down investments worth over N5bn to pave way for the ongoing expansion of the CCECC Murtala Muhammad International Airport terminal which is scheduled to be commissioned tomorrow Tuesday.
NigerianFLIGHTDECK obtained a video showing the demolition of investments worth billions starting with the regional headquarters of the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) at the MMIA, Lagos.
Other office complexes set to be demolished include private companies and government agencies like Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Federal Road Service Corps (FRSC) and the towing companies all close to the AIB-N regional headquarters.
The AIB Regional headquarters until mid-2020 was the headquarters of the bureau, it was marked for demolition in order to accommodate the expansion of the new Chinese terminal, which had been under construction since 2013.
Stakeholders in the industry have continuously claimed that the location of the new terminal was wrong and not in the master plan of the airport, the government however insisted on citing the terminal at its present location.
The demolished regional headquarters of AIB-N, houses its office complex, Command & Control Centre, office of investigators and Information Communication Technology (ICT) department.
Others are Training Centre, Mini Flight Safety Laboratory, which is used for downloading of flight recorders otherwise known as black boxes and investigators’ stores among others.
Most of the facilities at the AIB-N’s office in Lagos were installed less than four years ago by the current management led by Engr. Akin Olateru, the Commissioner, AIB.
This simply means more monies will now be sunk in to get some of these safety critical facilities again less than four years after they were put to use.
Again due to the hurried nature of the demolition AIB management had about two weeks ago relocated its Lagos staff to Abuja without relocation allowance or a befitting office for them in the Federal Capital Territory.
Many of its staff who were forced to move to Abuja could not secure accommodation in the FCT due to paucity of funds.
FAAN had in February this year in a later to the management of AIB, issued a two weeks ultimatum to the bureau to relocate from its present location.
FAAN had said the building and others would be used for apron extension of the new terminal.
The Minister on many occasions had previously argued that AIB and other companies were obstructing further expansion of the new terminal.
