Following the trending tweet by Vice president, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday, announcing that the federal executive council has agreed to the concession of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, aviation expert, Mojeed Aina has advised for concessioning of failing airports so as to lift them to value addition.
He said concesssioning performing airport or airports that are very strategic to national economy and security is very dangerous.
According to him, “The essence of concessioning is to allow a private investor to buy into a failing business so that he can inject fund and managerial capacities to change the hitherto bad narrative of the company and not to give out a performing firm to political allies so that they can be compensated for some jobs they have done in the past”.
“From experiences in past governments, several concessions in the past always end up in the hands of their allies and that is why even when the concessionaire is failing, they find it hard to revoke it because of hidden interest.
In the Twitter post via @NGRPresident, Osinbajo while speaking at the fifth edition of the presidential quarterly business forum held at the State House, Abuja said, “I am pleased to say that the federal executive council (FEC) has approved the concessioning of the Lagos and Abuja airports,”
VP @ProfOsinbajo: I’m pleased to say the Fed Exec Council (FEC) has approved the concessioning of the Lagos & Abuja Airports #PQBForum
— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) September 11, 2017
