L:R: Dr. Anna Egbadon, GM AVSEC FAAN, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, MD FAAN and Acting GM Corporate Affairs FAAN Mrs. Faithful Hope-Ivbaze during the courtesy visit to LAAC in Lagos.
Against the backdrop of the recent mangled body found on the runway of the Lagos airport few days ago, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, has heightened its patrol of the airport airfield.
The patrol which is being done manually with the combined team of the agency’s officials and the military is to ensure the sensitive areas are well protected.
Managing Director, FAAN, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu during a courtesy visit to the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents, LAAC, in Lagos said, adequate arrangements have been made to fortify the sensitive areas of the airport with surveillance systems from sunrise to dusk.
“I was a Director of Operations in FAAN when we realized there is the need for total surveillance for the whole airport. I want to Munich, Germany by the end of 2018 or so, identified the company, they came to do lead assessment twice; marking and survey. They gave us the estimate for visual and thermal infrared cameras. Visuals to cover the areas for a whole day – sunrise to sunset and thermal from sunset to early morning. If a rabbit is walking within 8km radius, which is 16km diameter, they will pinpoint it. We got that camera and at the whole airport, I don’t think you will get that 16 as a diameter. The runway is 3.7km or 3.8km and we are buying about four of those cameras to cover the airfield”.
According to him, it has acquired visual and thermal infrared camera surveillance equipment both for the Lagos and Abuja International airports and in a month or two, the equipment would arrive and installed, adding that, the facility is automated.
Capt. Yadudu noted that, the process for the acquisition of the security cameras started about three years ago and last year, President Buhari approved the procurement and now, they are awaiting the arrival of the system.
“We started procurement and the minister was very supportive. As of now, the procurement has been concluded and Mr. President approved it last year, part payment has already been made to the manufacturer and the Chief of Staff and myself, we went to the factory to ensure that what we are buying is what we are getting. We were there in November. The delivery will happen within the next one or two months and then installation follows”.
“This is fully automated; it will be spanning 360 degree. We already knows the solutions to all the challenges we are going through, the minister knows and even Mr. President knows too”.
In addition to the cameras, he said, two motorized equipment have also been purchased to handle any security challenges at airports.
“We also bought two motorized equipment. If you have any security challenges at any airport, we will drive it there and deploy it. Inside the vehicle, we have three screens that we can use to monitor and protect the airports”.
On the mangled body found on the runway, he said, “We have resolved the security issue and the manifestation is on ground. On that singular incident, there is still an investigation ongoing, but we can’t make any public statement until the result of the investigation is out. There are a lot of theories on it. I won’t dwell much on this until the report of the investigation is out”.
