The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, on Wednesday, gave an insight into why he approved the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria headquarters to Lagos State from the Federal Capital Territory.
Keyamo had recently issued a directive for the relocation of FAAN headquarters from Abuja to Lagos.
In an internal memo dated January 15, 2024, FAAN’s Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, directed the agency’s Director of Human Resources and Administration to come up with the implications of the relocation order.
In the memo, titled, “Relocation of FAAN Headquarters From Abuja to Lagos”, Kuku requested the implication of moving the operations of FAAN headquarters to Lagos.
The memo read, “The Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development has directed that the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria should be relocated from Abuja to Lagos.
“Consequent upon the above, you are requested to provide the implication of the relocation to the management.”
But justifying the decision when he appeared on Channels TV’s Politics Today, Keyamo explained that the decision to move FAAN’s headquarters was not an isolated one.
He explained that having considered the logistics cost of FAAN staff flying from Lagos to Abuja daily to sign documents or attend meetings, top officials of the agency approached him and requested for the relocation of the agency’s headquarters.
“When I was shown the book, I realised over N450 million was spent on flight tickets for staff moving from Lagos to Abuja daily in a year,” he said.
The minister added, “So, why do we make this decision? It is not like I woke up one day and made the decision. The new management approached me with the facts and said this is our problem. I asked them what the problem was and they said that some of the directors were here but the support staff and the departments under those directors had no place to stay and were in Lagos.
“The implication is that daily, you know FAAN is customer service based, and every day, the staff need to meet, make decisions, and all that. For these departments that are in Lagos whose directors are here in Abuja, you will see them (staff of those departments) flying every day from Lagos to Abuja and vice versa to get one simple signature or get one document approved for one small meeting or the other, and this is compounded by the fact that FAAN is not yet digitalised and that is what I met on the ground because they can’t yet exchange digital documents.
“So, they fly every day back and forth. In one year, when they showed me the book, they spent close to half a billion naira on air tickets just for flights between Lagos and Abuja. They spent over N450 million naira on flight tickets alone and I shouted and said what is this? The MD has an office here but she would need four persons and they would fly from Lagos to Abuja daily.”
