Addressing Insecurity at Nigerian Airports

For several years there have been incidents of Nigerians hiding in the wheel-well or other parts of aircraft to escape from the country. The continuous record of these incidents is an indication that the security system at the airports is weak and porous, writes Chinedu Eze

Few days ago, news report indicated that a stowaway was discovered in the wheel-well of KLM Boeing B777 aircraft flight that originated from Lagos, Nigeria.

According to the report, “A deceased stowaway was discovered in the wheel-well of a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 777 (registered PH-BQM). The aircraft originated from Lagos, Nigeria. It’s currently unknown how and when the man was able to climb into the aircraft, but an investigation has been launched.”

Analysing the report, a spokesperson of the Royal Dutch Marechaussee said: “The extra passenger is believed to have died from hypothermia. Occasionally, stowaways are discovered in wheel-wells of aircraft. ‘Sometimes they survive, but most of the time it goes wrong given the sharp drop in temperature. On longer flights, temperature can go down to minus fifty degrees, impossible to survive.”

Although there have been arguments that the body found might not have entered the wheel-well of the aircraft in Nigeria, but the desperation of Nigerians to leave the country and the fact that there have been past records of Nigerians stealing away and dying in that part of the aircraft, weakened that argument, as the truth would be known when a comprehensive investigation is conducted.

Security System

Aviation security experts who spoke to THISDAY in relation to the incident, felt disappointed that stowaway has become recurring image-damaging problem of Nigeria and emphasised that it is only a committed security system with necessary structures and proper supervision that can stop the illegal access to the sterile areas of the airport where aircraft are parked.

Stakeholders are also of the view that a compromised security apparatus can never effectively serve its purpose no matter the equipment deployed and the skilled personnel engaged, positing that in the airport system where security personnel accept bribes, solicit for money or extort money from travellers among others, the security system in that airport will remain weak. They also averred that such corrupt system enables inside threat, suggesting that if terrorists come calling, they could induce security operatives with money and have their way and do maximum damage to the airport.

Industry observers have over the years identified infrastructural deficits at the airport, which enhance security breach and these include lack of security fencing, inadequate perimeter fencing, lack of effective monitoring of sterile areas or airside of the airport. For Lagos airport, THISDAY investigations revealed that the airport does not have comprehensive perimeter fencing, no complete security fencing, as unwanted persons access the airport premises through many sides around the airport, where the fences have broken down or such people build lose scaffolds to gain entrance to the airport premises.

Security Layers

Aviation security expert and the CEO of Centurion Security and Safety Consult, Group Captain John Ojikutu (rtd), said that attention must be paid to every sequence of security system at the airports and security operatives must be profiled on regular basis.

“There are about eight identifiable aviation security manned/defence layers outside the National Intelligence: one, Airline Pre-Passenger Screening; two, Counter-Checking Screening; three, Airport Access Control; four, Airport Checkpoint Screening; five, Airline Passengers Secondary Screening for Boarding; six, On-Board Screening; seven, Carry-on luggage Screening and Checked in Baggage Screening” he said.

Ojikutu, who is also the Secretary-General of Aviation Round Table (ART), stated that there is airport security fence where the airport perimeter fence is not enhanced to secure the airport operational areas, noting that if anyone of these is neglected, not manned or compromised by unskilled or incompetent or corruptible staff, the airport is opened to any form of threats internal or external.

“What is necessary is having regular checks, inspections and periodic audits from the oversight and regulations enforcement authorities internal and external. All I have said are clearly stated in the Nigeria Civil Aviation Security Programmes but do we have the adequate manpower as security operatives and inspectors in required or sufficient numbers? The NCAA (Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority) should be the one to answer that from its annual audits on the operators, airport, airlines and the allied services,” he said.

Ojikutu observed that cargo screening is also very important especially for those meant to be carried into passengers’ flight, noting that any stowaway is an insider threat or assisted by a mole as an insider’s threat. Insider threat is when airport worker uses the stamp of authority because of his recogised office or position to compromise security by facilitating illicit access to the airport, aircraft or any forbidden areas of the airport. Most terror attacks at the airport were facilitated by insiders in cahoots with terrorists.

He itemised ways incidents of stowaways can be minimized, “Was the dead body that of a passenger or stowaway? If it is a passenger, hold the airline responsible: if stowaway, hold the airport security operatives  or authority at the operating/security restricted area, responsible. If a stowaway, he must have been an airport/airline staff or former staff who has worked closely with aircraft or must have been a mole ‘working’ in the airport, or could have been aided by someone (insiders threat) working in the airport restricted area. It tells me that the airport security programmes do not include patrol nor internal surveillance of the flight maneuvering/grounds areas. MMA is one major airport in the country that is within the urban development area of four most populated LGAs of Lagos and complicated road networks.

“We had similar experiences with a boy of about 10 years on KLM flight from Lagos to Amsterdam returned to Lagos alive, I received him: another (dead) on Egypt Air Accra to Lagos and yet another on BA from Lagos to London and to New York but was identified as a Nigerian because of the Naira found on his dead body. No matter the sophistication of the security equipment in our airport if the operatives and supervising authorities are not skilled or dedicated, the equipment is as good as nothing. Secondly, not many of our airports have Security Fences (ICAO Annex17): they are laid more of perimeter fences (ICAO Annex17 14) which are not security enhanced nor complied with the National Civil Aviation Security Programme and you wonder how they get certified by the NCAA and sometimes too by ICAO. We have had so many incursions at MMA and other airports, including Kaduna, Maiduguri, Calabar, etc. What has been the outcome of the investigations if ever there was any? I rest my case,” Ojikutu who was former Commandant of Lagos airport, said.

Investigation

Another aviation security expert and Chief Executive Officer of Selective Security International Limited, Nigeria, Ayo Obilana, told THISDAY that to ascertain if the stowaway actually entered the aircraft wheel-well in Lagos, concerned authorities must carry out thorough investigation to know how the stowaway entered the aircraft as extra unwarranted passenger. After the investigation which ought to obtain a video clip where the person was entering the wheel-well of the aircraft, if the aircraft location was covered by CCTV.

“Armed with information from the investigation, security authorities at the airport must look at the areas that are potentially porous and put measures that can enhance security to cover these areas where security could be compromised. The gaps must be closed around the airport to ensure adequate security coverage of the airport premises. Stowaway is not peculiar to Nigeria. It happens even in advanced countries,” he said.

Stowaway Records

The Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, has witnessed many records of stowaways as major gateway from Nigeria. Late last year there was mangled body of a young man who probably dropped from the undercarriage compartment of an aircraft at the Runway 18 R, known as international runway of the Lagos airport. Security operatives who removed the body for further investigation were of the conviction that it could only be another failed stowaway attempt. As the busiest gateway in Nigeria, the Lagos airport has unbeaten record of having the highest number of stowaways. The only survivor to date was a young man who hid himself in the spares compartment of Boeing B747 operated by a Nigerian carrier, Medview Airlines in 2017. Others that hid in the wheel-well of aircraft were either crushed or killed by frozen cold.   

What is obvious in all the incidents is that those who attempted to stowaway had easy access to the airport, which indicates serious frequent security breaches. It also has been established that those ill-fated Nigerians could not have had access to the restricted airside of the airport without insider support, which made it possible for them to sneak into the aircraft to fly out of the country.  

The 22-year-old man from Nnewi in Anambra State who stowed away in a spare compartment of Boeing B747 aircraft operated by Medview Airline and travelled to London from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, in 2017, returned unharmed.

Security operatives who were confounded by the successful access of the stowaway to the aircraft, admitted that the Lagos airport and other airports in the country were porous and that if the stowaway were a suicide bomber, he would have destroyed the aircraft along with the passengers while airborne to London.

This was possible because it is only Boeing B747 aircraft has that special compartment. THISDAY also gathered that the compartment is as pressurised as the aircraft cabin and it is close to the cockpit, but when the stowaway sneaked into that compartment in the night, nobody saw him accessing the aircraft, including the security officials paid by the airline to secure it. The aviation security officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the police at the protocol area through which he sneaked to the tarmac of the terminal did not see him.

So, the frequent stowaway attempts through the Lagos airport shows that the security at the airport is porous and after every attempt no effective attempt is made to stop another from happening beyond the rhetoric and assurances. This is why industry observers attribute the regular security breaches at the airport to compromised personnel, who could possibly help terrorists to access the airport if the price is right.

Former Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Richard Aisuebeogun, said insider threat remains a great challenge to airport security because terrorists could use money to secure insider collaborator or through religious or political belief.

The world was shocked when investigations into the crash of Metrojet Flight 9268, which exploded shortly after take-off from Sham El Sheik International Airport in Egypt on October 31, 2015, had shown that bomb was planted in the cargo hold of the aircraft by aviation handling personnel at the airport.

The flight was operated by an Airbus A321, which was destroyed by the bomb, killing all the 224 persons onboard.
Writing about the crash a year later in Newsweek magazine, an aviation analyst had said the bomb was tucked between two suitcases in the (cargo) hold. Russian investigators believe it was placed there during loading by a baggage handler who was loyal to an Egyptian offshoot of the Syria-based Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
In other words, an aviation worker sympathising with the ISIS cause, planted the bomb in the cargo hold of the aircraft. Such tragedy could happen at any airport with compromised security system.