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OSUBI AIRPORT EXPANSION: WHAT WILL N2BILLION BUDGET DO?

OSUBI AIRPORT EXPANSION: WHAT WILL N2BILLION BUDGET DO?

February 8, 2024 | News

 

 

 

By Zik Gbemre

 

OSUBI AIRPORT EXPANSION: WHAT WILL N2BILION BUDGET DO?



Since the announcement of federal approval of N2Billion for expansion of the Osubi-Warri Airport, I have been inundated with calls from far and near stakeholders acknowledging that the agitation I have been making for many years has been heard by the federal government at last.

Only recently, I confronted Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, to make a difference from preceding administrations who failed to give attention to the air facility.

 

But there is a snag with the approval. What will N2B do in the upgrade of the airport, particularly the Runways, Taxiways, Runway Edge Light Systems, Runway Identifier Lights & Obstruction Aviation Lights, Hangar Storage, and other Navigation Aids? The desired expansion is to bring it to standard to accommodate bigger aircraft to land and take off in all weathers.

 

Is the N2B for the contractor to mobilize to the site or to complete the expansion of the runways of the airport?  What is worth doing is worth doing well. How can 2BN complete that expansion with the free fall of the naira and inflation rocking the country?

Is the N2B to start and abandon it halfway or to complete the airport to standard? Minister Keyamo please go back and President Bola Tinubu to approve what can reasonably complete the expansion of this critical airport project.

Delta is one of the few South South States of Nigeria feeding the entire country. It is a mockery to approve N2B to expand the airport. Must they play politics with everything in Nigeria? A busy airport like Osubi-Warri will use only N2B to expand its runways and other modern facilities?

 

Construction of runways is not construction of roads without gutters that vehicles can drive flooded. Do you want a runway that will be like a swimming pool when rain falls?

 

Airport runway upgrade is not a road. Tinubu and Keyamo should stop playing politics with this matter. This request has been on since 2003.

 

Zik Gbemre

February 9, 2024

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