Nigeria’s second busiest airport, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja was nearly caught by fire recently when alleged rat chasers lit bush fire to drive out the rats.
Not able to control the spread of the fire, it penetrated the perimeter fencing of the airport, but for the timely intervention of airport workers, the facility would have been engulfed in flames.
The area that would have been affected was the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) and it would have resulted in loss of equipment worth billions of Naira.
Confirming the cause of the fire, an operator of Business Aviation said: “It was caused by Bush rat Chasers close to the airport. In the process they use fire and because of the dryness of the grasses it led to uncontrollable inferno.”
The operator also said the airport fire fighters could not gain access to the area on time because it was difficult.
He advised that the Ministry of Aviation and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) should construct and or upgrade access roads around the Perimeter Fence of all the airports in the country for proper security and quick response to any threat to the airports when the needs arises, adding that the access roads around the perimeter fence will enable adequate security coverage of the airport and curtail porosity.
“The Ministry and FAAN should also put preventive measures in place since this is an annual threat because of the weather condition. Message should go out to hunters and residents close to the nation’s airports that there should not be any burning whatsoever around the airport because of the danger it poses to both lives and equipment at the airport,” he said.
It is not only the Abuja airport that faces such challenge, most Nigerian airports are accessed by the host communities who extend their daily activities to the areas outside the operational sections and therefore see the airports as part of their assets, but over the years there has not been any major incident to warrant conflict between the communities and the authority.
