Aviation Minister Suspends Abuja Airport Officials Over Incident Involving Turkish Airlines

Turkish Airliner

The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has ordered investigation and suspension of three top officials of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, over a recent incident involving Turkish Airlines at the Abuja Airport.
The minister disclosed this while briefing newsmen on Sunday in Abuja after listening to explanations on the incident by the airport officials.
The suspended officials were ordered to handover to their next in rank pending the conclusion of the investigation and they include Airport Manager, Terminal Manager and Head of Airport Security.
The minister said:
“There has been an unfortunate incident where some agitated passengers of the Turkish Airlines arrived without their luggage making them to force their way into the tarmac which is a breach of security. “The explanation given is not satisfactory because the primary purpose of the government is to ensure safety of lives and property of its citizens.

“The cardinal objective of this administration is to secure the country and manage it and we cannot fail in aviation and we cannot fail in this important assignment at a very important point. “We have ordered for the investigation into the matter immediately and all the people that are manning the various places; Airport Manager, Terminal Manager and Head of Security, should handover to the next man in rank pending the outcome of the investigation.

“As to the airline also, the Consumer Protection Unit of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has been ordered to find out what happened, how compliant they are and deal with it accordingly,” he said. Sirika said the ministry was yet to get the flight manifest to be able to ascertain the number of passengers involved, which he added were many in number.

According to him, they got agitated and apparently they got access into the prohibited area because there was security lapse. The minister stated that the nation’s aviation sector had the capacity to grow, adding that it was already showing signal that it could tremendously contribute to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He said;

“With specific to Nigeria, you could see how we grew from Kano Airport where the first plane landed in the country to about 22 Federal Government-owned airports plus several other private owned airports. “On the whole, aviation, I can say, has grown to an appreciable level in the country and it has the capacity to grow more which is important to the economy of the country.”