Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika has reiterated his determination to demolish two private terminal facilities, Evergreen Apple Nige
Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika has reiterated his determination to demolish two private terminal facilities, Evergreen Apple Nigeria and Dominion Hangar, in the next few weeks to create space for the expansion of the apron of the new international terminal at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
While Evergreen Apple Nigeria, the first fully integrated Fixed Based Operations (FBO) and maintenance facility in Nigeria is owned by Harold Demuren, a former Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Dominion Hangar is owned by Living Faith Church Worldwide aka Winners Chapel whose presiding Bishop is David Oyedepo.
The state-of-the-art terminal was unveiled early last year, but since then it has not been fully utilised due to limited aircraft maneuvering space because of the small apron that cannot accommodate wide-body aircraft like Boeing B777 and others.
The minister made this known in Lagos at the unveiling of new fire fighting vehicles which has generated mixed feelings over its cost of N12 billion.
On the demolition exercise, Sirika added that it was necessary that the apron of the new terminal was expanded so that the facility would be fully utilised.
He noted that the practice of moving passengers to the old terminal after checking them in at the new facility was cumbersome and time consuming.
“We are not operating Lagos airport at full capacity. We have some obstructions that will be removed within the next one or two weeks to expand the apron so that Lagos will have full use 100 per cent of the new terminal.
“Those two hangars I talked about, Dominion and Evergreen will have to go and give way for our airport to be more efficient. It is a $300 million investment over there and they can’t sit there in public interest. We have to shift them.
“I don’t know them. Of course I know Demuren, my leader but I don’t know the other guy, it has to go. You can’t deny Lagos and the country in general from using the airports,” he said.
Sirika had in March 2022 demolished the over N5 billion regional headquarters of the Accident Investigation Bureau now National Safety Investigation Bureau ( NSIB) over terminal expansion and since then nothing visible has been done on the site save for mechanic workshops and food vendors’ shops.
