Aviation minister reiterates govt’s plans to make air travel preferred transport mode in Nigeria

The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, on Friday said the Federal Government was working to ensure that air travel is the preferred mode of transportation in Nigeria.

He also said the liberalisation of Nigeria’s airspace had led to an annual traffic growth of eight per cent, adding that the Federal Government planned to make Nigeria the hub of West African sub-region.

He said the government planned to achieve this with a population of over 180 million and a large land mass.

Meanwhile, Nigeria and 27 other countries that make up the African Union had in the last few years signed an agreement that requires state parties to liberalise scheduled and non-scheduled intra-Africa air transport services in line with the provisions of the Yamoussoukro Decision.

The minister spoke at the ongoing 40th assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, in Montreal, Canada.

The minister averred that lots of initiatives had been put in place to support the open skies policy.

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Sirika said, “Nigeria has been a great supporter of liberalisation and has continued to champion the liberalisation efforts in Africa through the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision and the Single African Air Transport Market.

“I wish to call on ICAO to continue to encourage and support regional liberalisation efforts of states, as they could be used as incentives to achieving global multilateral agreement on liberalisation of market access.

“I am happy to inform you that Nigeria’s efforts on liberalisation have led to significant increase in the operations of foreign and domestic airlines and utilisation of our airports, resulting in an annual traffic growth of over eight per cent.”

Going further, he said the task of making Nigeria a hub would require a robust industry that would be safe, secure, efficient and environmentally friendly, with modern and adequate infrastructure.

Speaking on safety, he said Nigeria within the last three years has continued to work towards sustaining the successes achieved in the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme and the Federal Aviation Administration International Aviation Safety Assessment Category 1 Rating.

“This had been done through the strengthening of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority to keep regulating aviation safety without political interference.

With regard to aviation security, Nigeria has continued to record significant improvements in this area with the installation of modern security equipment at our airports,” he said.

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