Abuja – The House of Representatives Committee on Aviation headed by Honourable Nnolim Nnaji has urged the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN) to put all necessary measures to avert a repeat occurrence of the type of power outage experienced at the D finger arrival of the international wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, (MMIA), Ikeja Lagos last week.
The D finger arrival was thrown into darkness for over fifteen minutes on the night of Friday, first of April, 2022 at about 11:15 pm at the time the disembarked Air France passengers were undergoing facilitations.
Honourable Nnaji in his opening remarks at the meeting with the FAAN management and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) stressed that the committee had to invite the two organizations for explanations on the incident following a disturbing video that went verile at the weekend.
The committee chairman said the Parliament was not happy with the development adding that a prime airport like the MMIA ought to have standby generators that were supposed to switch on automatically immediately the public power source went off.
The Managing Director of the Federal Airports of Nigeria, (FAAN) Captain Rabiu Yadudu disclosed that the problem was caused by the heavy rain which fell that night that affect the underground cables that supply power to the affected finger.
Captain Yadudu further disclosed that the international terminal of the Murtala Mohammed Airport has six 4.8 KVA generators serving as alternative power source to the terminal and that they usually switch on automatically within five seconds whenever there was disruption from the national grid.
He also stated that the problem lasted for only fifteen minutes before the light was restored adding that it was blown out of proportion through the social media network.
The Managing Director equally disclosed that the greatest challenge facing the authority was that some of the underground cables had damaged and needed total replacements because they were laid over forty years ago.
Also speaking in same vein,, the Director-General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA),Captain Musa Nuhu said since the terminal was built in1978 no major renovation had been carried on it.
He noted that what the terminal required was total remodeling and rewiring of the cables as the only way of solving the problems which according to him had been a reoccurring issue.
Honourable Nnaji however maintained that FAAN and the NCAA should meet and come up with suggestions on how to address the problem permanently to avoid future embarrassment of the type of what happened on April first, 2022.