Members of the Aviacargo Committee and Jos Airport Management in a group photograph during a visit to the airport on a fact-finding mission
Efforts are on by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN to revitalize the agro export prowess of the Yakubu Gowon Airport, Jos.
Today, the airport is under-utilized with three domestic airlines operating into the airport and zero agro exports activities.
The Airport Manager, Mr. Rindap Nantim says before now, flowers, fresh milk and meat where exported from the airport but unfortunately, that stopped many years ago leaving the airport nearly non-existent.
Mr. Nantim who disclosed this when members of the FAAN Aviacargo Committee came on an inspection tour of the export facilities at the airport expressed optimism that, the idea to constitute a committee to ascertain the state of export facilities across airports, identify the challenges limiting cargo export by air and come out with solutions to addressing them would go a long way to bringing back the good old days of the Jos airport.
According to him, with the visit of the committee, their dream is coming to past as what the Plateau people have always craved for, is increased activities at the airport which will directly or indirectly bring about employment, attract more investments, investors amongst others.
“Our dream is coming true. During our last year Management retreat in Kano, one of the things I discussed has to do with cargo development in this airport and am happy that the team has visited this airport to carry out an assessment of the possibility or the workability of the project”.
“Myself here and my Management team, we are delighted, it’s heartwarming to have you in our midst. The story you have hearing here and there that people are running up and down, you may have seen that it is quite different from what you seeing”.
The Jos airport Manager assured that, whatever pieces of advice that would be given by the committee, they would make do with it as long as it is targeted at ensuring that the dream of developing Jos airport as the cargo hub of the north central come to past.
“If I may look at this airport in retrospect, a lot of cargo where airlifted from this place, the Helena farms between 1994-1995, fresh rose flowers where flown out of this place to London, fresh meat from Bauchi, fresh milk where airlifted from here then we had night stop that would airlifted these thing from here to Lagos and onward delivery but today, the airport is a ghost town itself not because the facilities and resources are not there but nobody has come to encourage the would-be investors to embark on all this”.
Speaking on steps taken by the State Government, Mr. Nantim said, some investors from South Africa where brought in to see the possibility of building a warehouse in the airport for cargo export.
“The Plateau state government Property and Investment company came with investors from South Africa to explore the possibility of establishing a cargo warehouse in the airport. We had discussions with the consultant from South Africa and they did promise that they would do something about it”.
He added, “But now, since it is the initiative of FAAN and other organizations, I think it is going to drive the whole project to its logical conclusion”.
Earlier, a member of the Aviacargo committee Mr. James Shallangwa while introducing the committee members stressed that, they were on a national assignment spearheaded by FAAN to identify the problems militating against aviacargo growth and come out with a win-win solutions.
He also noted that, in its quest to achieving this goal, stakeholders in the cargo export ecosystem were brought into the committee and assured the Jos airport management that with the zeal and commitment of the FAAN management and the committee, success would surely be achieved.
Responding, the Coordinator, FAAN Aviacargo Roadmap Committee, Ambassador Ikechi Uko said, the purpose of their visit was to find out why Jos airport was no longer doing export, whether there were even facilities that supports export and ascertain the challenges of the airport.
He emphasized that, it was unfortunate that Plateau state, replete with exportable agro products is lagging behind in this area, adding that, the trend had to be reversed to bring back the glory of the plateau so that Nigeria can climb the ladder of being the number in aviacargo in Africa.
“It is not possible for us to become number one if we do not bring back Jos to its position of glory. At the end of the day, we would like to know why the airport that is known for the export of fresh produce is no more playing that role. We want to know why it was successful before and what has gone wrong. How can we mitigate it and bring back its glory”.
The Jos airport manager later took the committee on a tour of the airport particularly to the designated site of the cargo terminal which foundation stone was laid by the former minister of aviation, Princess Stella Oduah.
The committee was also shown warehouses being built by private investors for the purpose of export.
