The Federal Executive Council has approved the sum of N3.2 billion for the procurement of modern scanners for use in five international airports across Nigeria.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace, Festus Keyamo, disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of Monday’s meeting of the Council presided over by President Bola Tinubu.
He said: “This is what Nigerians would be interested in because since I came to office we have been inundated with complaints of the harrowing experiences that passengers go through at the airport where the airport officials of various agencies have to physically search their bags and it has been really getting under the skin of Nigerians.
“So we thought we should do something like where you have the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in America where there are detection machines that when it passes through your bag it detects explosives or any other thing and that is the end of the search.
‘So Council gave approval of an N3.2 billion award of contracts for the supply and installation of customized explosives and narcotics detection screening systems with a remote and dual view.”
The Minister revealed that the benefiting airports include the international airports in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port-Harcourt and Enugu.
Bilateral Agreement
The Aviation Minister also announced that the Federal Executive Council ratified Nigeria’s bilateral air service agreement with the Republic of Guyana.
He said the agreement was signed in 2014 but has not been ratified since then.
Keyamo added that as a result of ratification, Guyana can now have direct flights to Nigeria.
“We have entered into an agreement with Guyana, a South American country. They have been very anxious to have direct flights from Guyana to Nigeria. This agreement was entered into, way back in 2014 with the administration at that time but it required ratification by the Executive and that is what was done today, “he said.
Dominica Nwabufo
