Maiduguri Terminal Airport Manager Woos Investors
The International Terminal Manager of Maiduguri International Airport, Mr. Ibrahim Bello says governments of both Yobe and Borno “are talking to some investors to come and see” the investment potentials at the airport.
Bello said in an interview with journalists that the airport has a lot of potentials for cargo traffic considering the border countries near where it is located.
“Maiduguri is strategically situated. It has that strategic location advantage that airlines can take advantage of. It is the only airport that has borders with three countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger, which is a very, very good opportunity for us and FAAN to explore regional hope. We can have it. It has the strategic advantage more than any other airport in the country, which gives us an edge. So, at FAAN, this is what we are looking at, at the local level, and we are taking it up with our headquarters, to see how we can harness this opportunity,” he said.
“Maiduguri has non-scheduled operators, which are United Nations Humanitarian Air Services and World Food Programme. Then, we have Doctors Without Borders. We have ICRC as well, International Community of Red Cross. They also schedule non-commercial flights. We have the helicopter services here, global helicopters. In a day, we will have like five helicopter movements. So, there is a lot of traffic in Maiduguri,” said Bello
He said the Borno state Governor in collaboration with the Minister of Aviation & Aerospace Development have made a tour of the airport after which the Minister “asked all the agencies, the heads of agencies, to come up with their plan for the upgrade” the airport.
“So, in particular, FAAN brought out its working plan. We will provide this in terms of equipment, in terms of facilities, in terms of manpower; and the Governor took it upon himself to do the structural work, the construction of the extension of the terminal. FAAN submitted the drawing of what it wanted the terminal to look like and the drawing was adopted. Immediately, the State Government started work. This work took a little while and, thank God, we are seeing to its almost 90-something completion. So, FAAN, on its own side, has brought all the necessary equipment, as you can see,” he explained.
He said the upgraded facility here in the terminal has a passenger holding capacity of close to 500 at a time, which is a very, very good lift from what we have already, which is close to less than 300 passengers.
Bello said an airline has already indicated interest with a route plan on operations. “We do our route, and we have been doing the route analysis for quite a while now. Its proving to be something that would work. That is what we are looking at now. We can have a flight, maybe, Maiduguri and N’Djamena. We can extend it, maybe, to start from Kano, Kano, Maiduguri and N’Djamena, then Maiduguri-Kano. This is a well-established route, since Trans-Saharan trade. It can be reactivated. Before, it used to be a camel and a road, maybe, but now, we can introduce the flight advantage as well. Not only N’Djamena; we can extend it to Central Africa, which is Bangui. That used to be the trade route in those days,” he said.
“We have one of our operators here that has shown interest. It has done its own route analysis. We have been talking about it for years. Even recently, one of them called me and we had some discussion. So, they too are at their own level, they are doing it, and we at the station level, we are doing it.”
He said the airport is “one of the airports that does not have a Hajj terminal. We have the terminal, but due to the insurgency, the terminal has been overtaken by the military. So, we usually co-locate our operations, both domestic and Hajj operations, in one terminal; and this usually gives us a serious challenge. But, thank God, with the help of FAAN management, we are able to navigate through. Since I came here, we have had two Hajj operations. And this is what we usually have, because the two states operating here, Yobe and Maiduguri, have a large number of pilgrims. So just imagine having your domestic operation, doing it alongside your domestic operation. Sometimes we have two or three domestic operations.” He added that “there is a lot of cargo traffic here, in terms of livestock and foodstuff as well. As I mentioned, the trade routes from Maiduguri, N’Djamena, Cameroon, and Niger, there is a lot of cargo advantage there that can be enhanced. Just yesterday, somebody from the Ministry of Livestock came. We are having some discussions with them on how to make that possible.”
