By Favour Nnabugwu
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, says there is no going back on the relocation of the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos
“We are going ahead. The directive has been given,” the minister said matter-of-factly on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
He said it was uncalled for the half a billion FAAN staff spent on flight ticket annually to bring document through and from Abuja for signing
“You see them flying every day to and fro Abuja to get one file signed. They fly every day back and forth. In one year, they spent close to half a billion naira on flight tickets. N450m on flight tickets alone,” he said.
Keyamo said the movement of the headquarters of the airport authority has become necessary in line with current economic and operational realities.
all aviation agencies from Lagos to Abuja in 2020, no adequate provision was made for the principal officers like the directors and the departments under them.
He clarified that the headquarters is where the decision-makers meet, not where the largest number of workers are and not where the biggest building is.
He said over 100 of the 132 workers at the head office are in Lagos while only the directors are in Abuja — without their support staffers.
Keyamo said the whole issue was compounded by the fact that FAAN is not yet digitalised and so, in one year, they spent half a billion naira on flight tickets between Lagos and Abuja alone.
