The concession of the Murtala Muhammed Airport terminals alone would bring investment of over N30 billion annually which would be boosted by the construction of a rail line to link both the domestic and international terminals.

“The terminal building in Lagos is expected to bring investment of about N30 billion annually because we are going to link the domestic terminal to the international airport. There would be an investment plan by the concessionaire before we hand over the terminals to the preferred bidders. It is part of the process.

“Government is not ready to put money into airport infrastructure. Let the concessionaire bring in his money and at the end of the day, the facilities return back to the government. There are other competing needs for the scarce resource especially when we have health, education and other needs.

“Our airports in Nigeria operate sub-optimally. Government has no money to pump into airport infrastructure. Our airports operate for few hours except for a few. The population growth of Nigeria is rising. Murtala Muhammed International Airport was built for less than one million capacities but today, we are doing eight million while we have 19 million passenger traffic from all over the country. Nigeria is a good country for investment”.

However, stated that states that had gone into building of airports have the privilege of conceding them like the case with Asaba Airport which was early this year conceded to a consortium of private investors under a Public-Private Participation (PPP) model.

He reiterated that the Nigerian airport concessions would be a terminal concession while majority of its revenue would be derived from non-aeronautical sources, just as he noted that all other facilities at the airports and existing concessions outside the airport terminals will still be managed by FAAN.

Source: Tribune Online