Legal Practitioner Decries State Of PH Airport

An Abuja-based legal practitioner, Mr. Emeka Okoroafor has decried what he described as total deteriorating state of affairs and unsanitary condition of the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, saying that the Minister of Aviation, Mrs Fidelia Njeze and the management of the airport are incompetent.

Mr. Okoroafor who spoke to correspondents at the Port Harcourt International Airport Omagwa expressed disappointment at the state of the facilities at the airport and wondered whether the aviation Minister and the management of the airport really know their onions.

“I have been travelling through this airport for many years. I travel at least twice weekly by air and of all the airports in Nigeria, I want to state categorically that the Port Harcourt airport is the dirtiest, the filtiest and it is an airport that is very dysfunctional”, he declared.

According to him, the screening machines are not functioning and the cleaners have not been paid for several months despite the huge sums being generated from the airport and the tax collected from passengers via flight tickets.

“An airport without sanitation is like a duster, we are tax payers, you can see on our tickets that cost N18,500, government collects N6,500 as tax”, questioning a situation whereby such tax is paid to use the airport and there is no comfort.

“How can I pay N6,500 to use the airport and I contact disease as a result of the unsanitary state of the airport”, the lawyer asked, pointing out that if the aviation Minister and the management of the airport were competent and live up to their responsibilities, they would have updated the facilities at the airport.

“If the Minister was competent, she would have been conversant with the state of affairs of all the airports facilities in Nigeria. She should go down and do some ground work and not to award contract to rectify the anomalies at the airports”, Okoroafor stressed.

He observed that the airconditioners in the domestic departure hall were not functioning thereby keeping passengers uncomfortable and urged the management of the Port Harcourt airport to live up to its expectation, saying “we cannot be existing in a 21st century country and be living in a medeaval circumstance”.

The legal practitioner condemned the situation whereby some persons use public prosperities and positions to feed fat to the detriment of the people and called on the aviation sector to give Nigerians adequate services.

Shedie Okpara