Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
CHAIRMAN, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal 2 (MMA2), Dr. Wale Babalakin has said that the terminal managers have been invited by various countries in Africa to replicate the terminal they build in Lagos but are afraid to accept the offers due to lack of support.
Dr. Babalakin made this known in an interactive session with journalists at the Regional facility of the MMA2 Terminal explaining that some of the challenges it currently faces in Nigeria is rubbing off on its plans to do similar elsewhere in Africa.
According to him, non compliance with agreements and inability collect money owed limits the chances of going out with a solid footing, just as he inferred that sparkling testimonial from country of origin, if there was one, would help speed up matters.
He said,”As soon as we finished this (MMA2) terminal, three African nations approached us to come and do terminals. Do you know why we couldn’t? Two reasons: Non-compliance with the agreements and method and cash flow. If you are expecting 100 naira and you are getting 25 naira, what can you do?
“Second reason: When you are going abroad, what you go with is a testimonial of your own place to say that ‘I did this, my government is backing me as I come to your country to come and do this for you.’ I am not going to say more than that.
He added, “As we speak today, we’ve just been approached to come and do second terminals in four West African nations. We can pull it through but what we are afraid of, do we have support, because if you don’t have your government’s support and you go there and they koboko you, you’re on your own oh, and the ambassador is not saying: Look you can’t do this to our man, he is our man, na only you waka come (Jokes).
