Before 2007, there appeared to be a deliberate attempt to prevent the people of the Southeast a direct access to the outside world. This could be attributed to the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. Thus, the absence of a seaport or an international airport in the zone was seen as a means of keeping an eagle’s eye on the region.

There was also what some interpreted as politics of economic rivalry as the existence of a functional airport or seaport in the region would have far-reaching implications for the economy of the Southwest, particularly Lagos State, as the Igbo are predominantly traders and importers. It is estimated that about 75 per cent of cargo containers that arrive at the Lagos Port and 55 per cent containers that arrive at the Onne Port end up in the Southeast.

Although an international airport has always been one of the major demands on every government right from the campaigns period, but successive governments had kept making promises, and all efforts at establishing an international airport in the zone were politicised. It took the election of the late President Musa Yar’Adua and the official visit to him in July 2007 by the Southeast Senate Caucus led by former Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu to secure the approval of an international airport for the region.

Yar’Adua made good his promise during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting of November 13, 2007 when the decision was formalised and announced at the end of the FEC meeting by the then Minister of Transportation, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke.
There was, however, no funds to start work, hence the decision of the Enugu Caucus of the National Assembly to pool N2 billion into the 2008 Budget for the project. But the project still did not take off.

In a reminder letter to President Yar’Adua dated March 20, 2009, Senator Ekweremadu lamented: “Your Excellency may wish to recall that sometime in July 2007, I led a delegation of Southeast Senators to discuss with you, among other things, the upgrading of Enugu Airport to an international status. You may recall also that you expressed surprise that there is no International Airport in the whole of Southeast and graciously directed the then Minister of Transport, Mrs Dizeani Madueke.

“However, nearly two years after, no step has been taken to provide facilities that will enable international flights to land and take off at the airport.

“In 2008, National Assembly members from Enugu State sacrificed various sums due to their constituencies for projects in an effort to appropriate sufficient fund in the Federal budget for the upgrading of facilities at the Enugu Airport. Unfortunately, that appropriated fund was not implemented and the monies were returned to the Federal Government.

“Your Excellency may wish to note that this unfortunate circumstance was in spite of the fact that all due process procurement activities had been completed with a due process certificate issued on December 1, 2008. I attach herewith the said due process certificate for your ease of reference.

“In the 2009 Federal budget, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) made a provision of N1billion for the upgrading of facilities at the airport. Furthermore, the National Assembly members from Enugu State appropriated the sum of N2 billion due to them for their constituency projects into the said budget for upgrading of the Enugu Airport.

“But in spite of your directive for the upgrading and the various budgetary provisions made for that purpose, no action has been taken by the Ministry of Aviation to give effect to Your Excellency’s directive.

“I am, therefore, appealing to Your Excellency to kindly direct the Minister of Aviation to take appropriate action to upgrade the facilities in Enugu International Airport. As stated earlier, sufficient budgetary provisions have been made for this exercise in the 2009 Federal Budget”.

Also governors of the Southeast met with Yar’Adua on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 to lend support to the efforts of the Southeast NASS Caucus. The delegation comprised Anambra’s Peter Obi, Abia’s Theodore Orji, Ebonyi’s Martin Elechi, Enugu’s Sullivan Chime; and Imo’s Ikedi Ohakim.

The contract for the project was eventually awarded to the tune of N4.13 billion in 2009. But it appeared the then Minister of Aviation under Yar’Adua, Babatunde Omotoba, was working at variance with the administration.

During the flag-off of the project at Enugu Airport, Omotoba said: “I cannot confirm that Enugu Airport has become an international airport. We have four international airports, Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt, but we have other airports that have started showing signs of strong traffic. That is Calabar, Enugu, Kaduna and Benin, and government is determined to ensure that available systems in the airports meet up with relevant standards.”

He added that the contract was primarily to rehabilitate and upgrade facilities in the airport to meet aviation safety standard, as well as to make provision for heavier aircraft. This did not go down well with the region.

Sensing possible sabotage, the Southeast NASS members spearheaded by Ekweremadu lobbied and ensured that Mrs Fidelia Njeze was made Aviation Minister during the cabinet reshuffle by Jonathan after Yar’Adua’s demise in 2010.

Working in concert with the NASS agenda also, Mrs Njeze pushed for the gazetting of the airport as an international facility vide FEC approval at its October 19, 2010 meeting.

In addition to gazetting the airport, the Jonathan administration and Stella Oduah as minister of aviation awarded a reviewed contract to bring the total cost to about N10.03 billion. With considerable work done after the closure, the airport was reopened and received the first international commercial flight (Ethiopia Airline) on August 24, 2013.

There have, however, been complaints over the non-completion of work and the quality of work already done. Of greatest worry was the runway and absence of night landing equipment due to poor funding of the project. This prevented many international airlines from plying the lucrative route.

Experts had particularly faulted the engineering design of the runway, which makes them easily susceptible to flooding, thus worsening the wear and tear.

They argued that asphalt does not go hand-in-hand with water. These discouraged international airliners, the Ethiopian Airline, from flying the airport

The Muhammadu Buhari administration first indicated plans to close the airport in May 2019. Minister of State Aviation, Hadi Sirika, listed some of the reasons for the planned shutdown of the airport to include the bad condition of the runway, the landing aids, a market, a broadcasting station mast, free trade zone, among others.

Sirika said that the airport would be closed down until the state government removed all the encumbrances posing threat to safe flight operations at the airport.

This too was widely received in the Southeast as a strategy by the Federal Government to return the region to the era it did not enjoy a direct access to the rest of the world. But the Enugu State government acted swiftly to remove the observed encumbrances.

Nevertheless, the airport was finally shut in August this year. The authorities said that even Air Peace, which was about the only airliner flying the aviation facility, had given up due to the high risk involved.

Considering the importance of the airport to the people of the Southeast, especially the approaching Yuletide, the governors of the Southeast invited the Minister of Aviation to a meeting in Enugu where it was agreed that all hands would be on deck to ensure the airport was reopened in December.

A vexed issue in the meeting with the minister was the issue of the contractor to handle the project. While the Federal Government was rooting for a certain contractor, the governors wanted Julius Berger Plc.

However, two months after the closure of the airport, work is yet to commence on the project, thus prompting a motion moved by the Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Toby Okechukwu, on behalf of over 30 other lawmakers, mainly from the Southeast, calling for President Buhari’s special intervention on the airport.

A delegation of Southeast governors and leaders also visited Aso Rock where the President told the delegation that he had already approved the N10 billion ahead of their coming. This, many said, showed that President Buhari was very concerned and committed to bringing Southeast’s elusive quest for a truly international airport to a happy end.

With the release of N10 billion, the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has promised to temporarily relocate his office to the Akanu Ibiam International Airport to directly supervise the rehabilitation of the airport by April 2020 to become the best in the country.

As the Southeast awaits with bated breathe, many believe that there is finally not only a light at the end of the tunnel, but indeed a consummation of all the efforts that dated back to 2007, which might open a new vista in APC and President Buhari’s perception in the Southeast. However, only April will tell.

https://www.sunnewsonline.com/akanu-ibiam-intl-airport-enugu-the-realities-politics-and-new-hope/

Great write up. But op I didn't see where u mentioned Stella Oduah in your write up.

Or am I missing something here.

The eastern region must not have an access to the world or else the other airports won't see patronage.

Conspiracy theory.

Please someone should prescribe a drug that cures depression fast! I hear say nah only death! #confused


To those that have had this experience when you felt your losing it n everything turning apart please what did you do to get back on track! DEVASTATED

Please who can summarize what the OP wrote?

Well, till April i comment my reserve.

Hmm, what do I know about Politics?

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Nigeria and backwardness..

The development of every state in our nation is what we want.

Progress in every sphere of our daily lives is what we are aiming to have.

Prosperity for all Nigerians that work for it cannot be joke with.

Our nation will gradually, slow and steady rise again from the battered state it was years ago.

Nigeria will be great again.

God bless Nigeria.

is that so?

Me I thought GEJ and Stella Odua had made the Enugu Int airport the best in the world?

Wailers, what yah say

Jonathan's uncompleted legacy's


Stella Oduah there daughter made Billions pf Naira from the white elephant project


But to the detriment of her very own people

So no comment

Thy should go the Ihedioha of Imo way- Destroy the existing structure

Igbos crying wen wen wen Everywhere and everytime. Let me correct one wrong notion, the Yorubas have never seen themselves to be in rivalry with any tribe, we just live our lives it's the Igbos that sees rivalry and we don't see them as rivals in anything.

You will never see the Yorubas running after anything because the Igbos achieve it but you will see the Igbos always want to do what Yorubas does in rivalry manner and that is the reason the Yorubas will always be ahead of the Igbos, because we channels the paths the Igbos always follows.

You can have international airports in every Igbo state and sea port in all your backyards, the Yorubas are never concerned and will never complain because we are always ahead.

So op keep the Yoruba mention out of your rivalry lamentation next time.

SpecialAdviser:
Great write up. But op I didn't see where u mentioned Stella Oduah in your write up.

Or am I missing something here.

Denikayan:
Jonathan's uncompleted legacy's
Stella Oduah there daughter made Billions pf Naira from the white elephant project
But to the detriment of her very own people
So no comment
Thy should go the Ihedioha of Imo way- Destroy the existing structure

While you are living in the past

We have since moved to 2019.. Buhari is the failure

Scam of the century

I didn't read this, I Know you didn't too.

Na wa oo.

post=83516427:
The development of every state in our nation is what we want.

Progress in every sphere of our daily lives is what we are aiming to have.

Prosperity for all Nigerians that work for it cannot be joke with.

Our nation will gradually, slow and steady rise again from the battered state it was years ago.

Nigeria will be great again.

God bless Nigeria.

This is the first coherent mature post from you that doesn't sound like a sulky three year old wrote it

Well done and keep it up

Cheers

ZombieTERROR:


While you are living in the past

We have since moved to 2019.. Buhari is the failure

And your darling GEJ who built a "world class international Enugu airport" is the hero, no?

Yeye.

Weed and sex

JON01:
Please someone should prescribe a drug that cures depression fast! I hear say nah only death! #confused


To those that have had this experience when you felt your losing it n everything turning apart please what did you do to get back on track! DEVASTATED

so this one expected us to read this thing.

God bless President Buhari. We Igbo's love you more than Nnamdi Kanu, Ojukwu and Nnamdi Azikiwe. This same Airport was the one that our own Daughter, Stella Oduah and her Boss Goodluck Jonathan, embezzled the funds meant for the reconstruction and Renovations. Thank God today, our Messiah is here.

Mr President, Igbo's World wide will never forget you sir.

matify83:
The eastern region must not have an access to the world or else the other airports won't see patronage.

Conspiracy theory.

If the east had an international airport and seaport that lagos una dy use make mouth will crumble faster than a building hit by an earthquake
All i mean all igbo businesses have their HQ's in the east
That's why they laugh and willingly pay those silly lagos levies cuz they know na just branch office dy lagos
Conspiracy theory my bootlace

Writer is biased tried to elevate activities of Ekweremadu and south east governors between 2007 and 2009. What happened between 2009-2015, when Jonathan was in power and Ekweremadu still hold sway and their daughter, Stella was the minister of aviation? Could they not have pushed for it.
The writer(I don't want to generalise the SE) want to present case as if the other region don't like them or don't want their progress whereas the reverse is the case. Ops also presenting issue in the assumption that the other regions are scared of the south east. This is arrogance .
Lastly the writer is popagating falsehood . The fact that most importers of commodity ( NOT industrial goods) seems to be from the southeasterners they are not the consumers, their market is in Lagos not East and the fact that the zone is landlocked , makes Lagos to be the prefered choice as it is also close to the source of market

Hatred is destroying everything good that should come out of Nigeria..,

em not a tribal bigot though ...but I don't like it when some people from other region always mention LAGOS ,as if lagos state is in competition with other States...let's be factual ..Prove your point without quoting other States as if they are the ones hindering your growth...Every state has a REPRESENTATIVE in the house...