Much Ado About FAAN Relocation to Lagos

Chinedu Eze

Last week the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), confirmed that it was directed to relocate its headquarters back to Lagos, where it moved from in 2020 to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The agency gave reasons for the movement and chiefly among them is that in Lagos, it has physical structure that served as its headquarters for many years and the structure is still intact. In Abuja, FAAN does not have offices as operational headquarters and was considering renting office space to accommodate its top officials.

Lagos, FAAN said, is the hub of activities where over 60 per cent of travellers are processed, “and it has the highest passenger throughput in the country and it is good that the management of the agency is located in proximity to its operational hub.”

FAAN said it loses huge resources paying allowances for its staff for movement between Abuja and Lagos every week.

Many stakeholders could not understand why aviation agencies were asked to move to Abuja when there was no structure made available for them. Some said that if such a decision was not a knee-jack reaction out of sentiment, the former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika should have made sufficient plan by building befitting offices and living quarters for FAAN staff and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency that were asked to move to Abuja.

“He had enough time to do so. He served for almost eight years. He could have dedicated the first four years to complete the structures that would house the new headquarters and would have built living quarters for them, as they have in Lagos, which has been of immense benefit to the agency and others, “a stakeholder said.

Industry expert and aviation security consultant, Group Captain John Ojikutu, expressed surprise that the decision to relocate FAAN to Lagos was eliciting such reaction and political colouration.

“Does it really matter wherever the FAAN headquarters is located if not for the political office holders to be using it as fund tracking for themselves? FAAN headquarters can be anywhere in Kano, Kaduna, Owerri, etc to do oversight over all the airports under its responsibility. What FAAN is to the political office holders is the reason for them not wanting the airports for concessions since the year 2000 when the Act for their concessions was promulgated,” he said.

The Managing Director of Flight and Logistics Solutions Limited, Amos Akpan, told THISDAY that the protest against the relocation was politically motivated.

“Inadequate and inappropriate work environment is a serious breach of regulatory requirements for organisations in aviation industry. Scattering personnel and offices in different locations hinders coordination for time specific deliverables. Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had built a suitable office in Abuja airport to accommodate her headquarters staff. FAAN did not conceive headquarters infrastructure in Abuja. FAAN had always treated Abuja as regional management center, therefore did not provide infrastructure for her headquarters functions. Since the order to relocate to Abuja, FAAN has had to rent offices in Abuja while some key post holders shuttled between Abuja and Lagos. The federal government should plan the relocation, provide suitable accommodation for work and residence, provide work tools that fit functions before the order to relocate.

“In my opinion, regional offices should be empowered to take decisions regarding operations and commercials with well documented guidelines. Financially, it’s expensive to have suitable infrastructure as headquarters in Lagos not used while you rent offices for personnel in Abuja and pay hotel and inconvenience allowances to them because they have to report to work in Abuja. The Minister did not ask NCAA to relocate because they have functional infrastructure that fits purpose. The Minister will not order the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) to relocate. The Minister will not order the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria (NCAT) to relocate. The protesters do not have adequate information and they are pushed around by politicians. Giving ethno-political colorations to technical decisions will only set us back. We are due to demonstrate compliance on close of gaps from the last International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) audit; we should not set traps for failure against ourselves,” Akpan said.

The Executive Secretary of industry think-tank, Aviation Round Table (ART) and Director of Research and Strategy of Zenith Travels, Fidel Olu Ohunayo, described the threats issued by politicians from the northern part of the country over the decision to relocate the FAAN headquarters to Lagos as silly.

“When these offices were moved from Lagos to Abuja, there was no threat and nobody was asking for consequences and the cost and rationality for moving it. Again, for me, I think the Ministry this time had no reason going on air to put out a notice in the first place and going on air to justify it. I think that could have been done quietly because for FAAN, majority of FAAN staff were already operating from Lagos.

“So, the only movement that we saw in FAAN was that of, maybe, the managers and the directors, and you could understand that everybody wanted that huge sum of money to relocate. And that was what they targeted for. And now if you are asking for relocation now, you are actually asking the same civil servant to make some money again to relocate back to their base. And I think they should not have publicised it, and they should not have made it something of a drama. It had to be done quietly. Because even before Mrs. OlubunmiKuku started work as FAAN Managing Director, the last MD, was operating from Lagos. He was more in Lagos than in Abuja, same with the one before him. So it shows where the state of FAAN is, and I think they will just continue in that pattern rather than do this drama that is coming up now,” he said.

Ohunayo also pointed out that the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) would also have the same problem because while it has operational headquarters in Lagos with an Annex, it has no structure and paid whopping amount of money to rent office outside the airport in Abuja; office, industry observers said was grossly inadequate.

“I think NAMA is also another basket case. They are all leasing properties all over the place. They don’t even have offices for their staff. They have already applied again for money to go and rent another building, when you have buildings in Lagos, unoccupied. Something is really wrong with our mentality. Do we want the agency to run efficiently? Do we want to save money? Or we are more concerned about the political gains that we have? It is not compulsory. If there are officers that need to be in the Abuja, so let those officers that need to be in Abuja be in Abuja. And those who have to be in Lagos, be in Lagos. Why should you go and rent extra building when you have offices in Lagos unoccupied? Why should you do that? It does not make sense.

“I think we should care about providing efficient services by these service providers, which is a problem till today. And that should be their priority, not the drama of relocation,” he added.

FAAN would save billions of naira in expenses moving its headquarters back to Lagos, he further said.