The recent rating of Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa as world’s worst airport by the Cable News Network survey has brought to limelight, the dilapidated state of the facilities at the third busiest airport in Nigeria.
According to CNN, this year’s survey, which asked fliers to identify the world’s worst and best aviation terminals, attracted 26,297 qualifying responses and respondents reportedly complained about unpleasant and unhelpful staff, alleged corruption, a severe lack of seating, broken air-conditioning and the fact that the arrivals hall was inside a tent.
The Port Harcourt airport terminal project poignantly confirms the fear that when a project is abandoned halfway, it becomes worse than it was before work started. It also confirms the fears expressed by travellers and other Nigerians when work started at the airport, under the airport remodeling project initiated by the ex Minister of Aviation, now Senator Stella Oduah that the huge project might not be completed.
Their fears have been confirmed and there are strong indications that other projects that were abandoned halfway would eventually rot away as the Port Harcourt airport; unless immediate action is taken to complete them. But signals from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) do not denote any urgency about the completion of the projects; although the FAAN Managing Director, Saleh Dunoma in an interview with THISDAY said that contractors had been recently paid to continue with the projects. He said as money is generated, part of it would be ploughed into the completion of the terminals.
Indeed, the Port Harcourt airport has been in a sorry state. CNN was actually captured the rot and designated the airport as the worst in the world this year because of Internet access, which gave Nigerians the opportunity to respond to the survey. Now, that the report has exposed the sorry state of the airport, it is expected that government should take urgent steps to revamp the airport.
Last year Skytrax and the Guide to Sleeping in Airports, a website that documents information on airports and the people who sleep in them, rated Nigerian airports as some of the worst in Africa. While the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, was rated 10th worst in Africa, the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja and Port Harcourt International Airport, Port Harcourt, were ranked the seventh and sixth worst airports on the continent respectively. The highest-ranking Nigerian airport in Africa is the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos
The case of the Port Harcourt was very peculiar in the sense that it rehabilitation did not start when others started. Concentrated efforts were made on the international terminal, which left it over 90 per cent completed but at the time Oduah was removed as Minister of Aviation, the contractor handling the project was still demolishing the old domestic terminal for a new facility preparatory to building of new one.
Initially, the plan was that the old terminal would be rehabilitated and expanded but when Oduah saw the level of decay she decided to rebuild the terminal entirely. It was the same situation at some other airports because the facilities were never rehabilitated for decades.
In September 2013 the contractor Inter-Bau had told journalists who came to inspect the remodeling project at the airport that the first phase, which was the international terminal was about 95 per cent completed because all facilities were in place and they had been empowered.
“The mechanical facilities are working. So the first phase is 95 per cent completed. What is left is a few touch ups and clean ups. Then on the second phase (domestic terminal) we are on demolition work. The wet works are about 60 per cent completed. We have done the roof slab up to the end. We have done the columns to carry the rafters. The rafters are already on ground. On demolition work, we are about 80 per cent completed, we are carting away debris and what is left is an existing slab on the demolition work. So after demolition work by this week we hope to start the final wet work that is about 30 per cent left,” an official of Inter-Bau had said.
The contractor also said what was being done was more than renovation.
“It is an upgrade. A facility that is on ground is being upgraded in terms of passenger capacity, in terms of capacity on ground. When we came in, we had to start our work and the few challenges we faced include the fact that the airport is operational while work is going on in it.”
Despite all the efforts, two years down the line, the designated international terminal serves as both international terminal and domestic departure while domestic arrival still operates from the scandalous tent.
Former Regional General Manager of the airport, Mrs. Ebele Okoye told THISDAY last year that the tent was put in place in December 2012 when “we were instructed to do so, knowing fully well that the contractor, Inter-bau, which was in charge was going to have complete demolition of the old structures. The then Minister of Aviation directed that the tent should be erected so that work could begin on the terminals.”
Okoye said the inconvenience of staying in a tent was too much because “the rains will come, the storm will break the tent and it would scatter everywhere. The tent would leak, and of course it is a tent that was supposed to serve a temporary purpose.”
The tent, although replaced from time to time, has served for three years. It is high time FAAN took urgent action and revamp the airport to lift it from the world’s worst airport to one of the best airports in the world.
