GOVERNORS AND UNVIABLE AIRPORTS
Many of the airports springing out in the states are cost centres we can ill-afford
Building airports is capital intensive and so is their maintenance. A functional airport needs permanent technical and administrative personnel who must work to sustain the cost of their existence, even if they are not generating money. But it appears that the priority project for almost every governor is to build an airport in their state. Against the background that only three airports account for more than 90 per cent of all passenger journeys across the country, according to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), we fail to understand the motivation for this obsession by governors.
Looking at market projections, there is not going to be sudden rise in air transport in Nigeria because of low per capita income. Yet, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, said recently that 19 of the 22 federal airports were being subsidised as they do not get passenger traffic commensurate to their operational cost. “We also have about six or seven airports that are either owned by state governments or private individuals or entities, which we support with either aviation security or fire and rescue services,” said Kuku.
At present, out of all the airports built by states, only the ones in Uyo and Asaba could be said to be viable and that is because government in both Akwa Ibom and Delta States support them financially. Kebbi State, for instance, built an airport some years ago with state-of-the art facilities. Today, it barely has scheduled regular flights, except charter services. Unable to break even, the airport was handed over to FAAN to manage at huge deficit to the aviation agency. It is the same experience with other state-owned airports in Bauchi and Gombe that have been taken over by the agency.
We therefore do not understand the rationale behind building more airports for the states beyond political consideration. Unfortunately, the states are only following the bad example set by the federal government. When in 2020 the federal government gave approval to states to build airports in Anambra, Benue, Ekiti, Nasarawa and Ebonyi States while taking over the ones built by Kebbi, Osubi and Dutse and Gombe States, we queried the rationale behind the decision. Of the 26 airports being managed by FAAN, only six of them record above 5,000 aircraft movement in a year. All the others depend on these six to stay afloat. The question we posed at the time remains unanswered: In a period of lean resources when the same government is borrowing to meet commitments, why does it have to saddle the country with more cost centres?
The argument that states cannot develop without an airport fails in the face of reality because some of these airports have formed a cluster. An investor travelling to a certain part of Akwa-Ibom may have to land at the Calabar Airport to get faster to his destination than landing at Uyo Airport. Asaba Airport is closer to a businessman in Onitsha than Anambra Airport at Umueri. In fact, it is said that the air traffic controller at the Asaba airport could guide a plane to land at Umueri airport in Anambra.
The consequences of building unviable airports are that huge resources, which would have been used to provide other essential infrastructure and other amenities, are spent on unprofitable ventures. Most of these airports only serve the interest of the governors who travel through them with charter services, as scheduled services cannot break even for commercial airlines due to low passenger throughput. All factors considered, it makes no sense that states are expending huge resources to build new airports.
