By Kalu Idika
“The idea that elected politicians of South East extraction are falling on themselves in their sycophantic gambits to outperform each other towards pleasing the ‘powerful’ President Muhammadu Buhari over the yet to be completed renovations works at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu, South East of Nigeria, shows that there is a deep deficit of leadership in the South East of Nigeria and should be a pointer for the people who will vote in subsequent elections to look beyond the momentary bribes of bags of salt, rice and wrappers to search for leaders who have strong will and greater peoples friendly character to be elected”.
With the above preamble, the prominent Civil Rights Advocacy Group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has carpeted President Muhammadu Buhari for deceiving the people of the South East of Nigeria by going ahead to commission the Akanu Ibiam International Airport which renovation works have not even reached significant proportion or percentage. HURIWA also dismissed as sycophantic rhetorics, the praises heaped on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration by some political nitwits of South East extraction over the commissioning exercise which is a ruse to deceive the gullible people to believe that the Central government is up and doing with delivering the needed infrastructures that will enable economic growth to take place. The Rights group said assuming without conceding that the renovations of the only International Airport serving Nigeria’s most travelled population is a good thing, why do we have to praise the President as if he personally bankrolled the project. Far from it, the services and projects delivered by political office holders are done from the resources of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We are disappointed that the Airport was shut down for over a year for renovation and was supposed to have been completed back in April, but the Federal Government failed to keep to their words and even when the re-opening was deferred, it has still emerged that the strategic components that should make the Airport Standardized, are yet to be installed, but yet over 60 million South Easterners were deceived into believing that the government at the centre has completed the renovations for which a paltry N10 billion was approved whereas the National Assembly said the same government has spent N60 billion to renovate the fence at the university of Maduguri in Borno North East of Nigeria”.
HURIWA wonders why it took the same government less than two months to renovate the Abuja international Airport, build brand new road to Kaduna Airport and renovated Kaduna Airport to take in flights coming to land in Abuja, but the Akanu Ibiam international Airport was shut for over a year but almost all of the strategic components to enhance safety and standardised services at the Airport are yet to be installed and yet Nigerians of Igbo extraction are made to venerate the President as if the South East of Nigeria is not part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
HURIWA stated thus: “We have just read the scientific report by Charles Ogbu who reported authoritatively that the Enugu Airport has yet to be fully renovated when he wrote that:”Just to put the record straight, some of the pictures being peddled online ARE NOT pictures of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport.
The pictures below represent the true, factual and verified condition of the airport.
The renovation of Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu IS NOT yet completed.
As of today, August 30, 2020,
(1) Only the runway of the Akanu Ibiam Airport is fully ready which means only local flight can resume.
(2) The Night landing equipment is yet to be fixed. Which means, just like before, no flight can use the airport at night. For now.
(3) Neither the cargo terminal nor the international terminal building has been completed.
In a nutshell, the renovation of Akanu Ibiam International Airport is still continuing even as they have declared it open for use today. Most of the facilities required for international operation are yet to be fixed.
According to the authorities, the entire renovation will be completed before the year runs out.
NOTE: what I have done here is provide information as to the true situation of things at the airport in question. Nothing more.”
HURIWA has therefore condemned the haste in pouring rain of gratitude to President Muhammadu Buhari for failing to fully renovate the Enugu International Airport even one full year after it was shut down and Nigerians were told it would be finished in few weeks. The Rights group said the people must evolve the culture of demanding account and transparency from their elected politicians if we truly want constitutional democracy not to collapse just as the Rights group said praising government officials for using public money to build public assets is one way of bringing into being a very dangerous and lawless dictatorship of the strong African ruler which is antithetical to everything we should hold so dear as lovers and builders of a democratic nation.
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