Posted by Sade Williams
The House of Representatives Committee on Aviation has heard that unless the cables and wires at the Murtala Muhammed Intercontinental Airport terminal in Lagos are completely overhauled, the power outages at the airport may not cease.
At the instance of the Committee, headed by Hon Nnolim Nnaji, both the Managing Director of the Federal Airports of Nigeria, (FAAN), Captain Rabiu Yadudu and the Director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu, told the House that the airport was built over 40 years ago adding that no major renovation had taken place since then hence, the outages
The committee however, urged FAAN to put all necessary measures in place to avert a repeat of the outage experienced at the D finger arrival of the international airport at the weekend.
Earlier, Yadudu told the House that the power outage that occured at the weekend was caused by the heavy rain which fell that night.
He told the members that the storm from the rain affected the underground cables that supply power to the affected finger.
He further disclosed that the international terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport has six 4.8 KVA generators serving as alternative power source to the terminal and that they usually switch on automatically within five seconds whenever there was disruption from the national grid.
He also stated that the problem lasted for only fifteen minutes before the light was restored adding that it was blown out of proportion through the social media network.
The Managing Director equally disclosed that the greatest challenge facing the authority was that some of the underground cables had damaged and needed total replacements because they were laid over forty years ago.
Capt. Nuhu on his part, noted that what the terminal required was total remodeling and rewiring of the cables as the only way of solving the problems which according to him had been a reoccurring issue.
Honourable Nnaji in his opening remarks at the meeting with the FAAN management and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) stressed that the committee had to invite the two organizations for explanations on the incident following a disturbing video that went verile at the weekend.
The committee chairman said the Parliament was not happy with the development adding that a prime airport like the MMIA ought to have standby generators that were supposed to switch on automatically immediately the public power source went off.
Nnaji however maintained that FAAN and the NCAA should meet and come up with suggestions on how to address the problem permanently to avoid future occurrence.
