Like the morning moon enhancing its skies, the rushing vehicles and crowds announced that Lagos was alive and awake. From Orile-Iganmu to Fadeyi, where I was picked up by a senior colleague, the roads took hits from speeding vehicles’ tyres, writes Dickson Omobola.

 

It was the break of dawn on Monday, December 18. Freshly prepared for the new day, I fastened my black laptop bag to my right shoulder eager to commence the day’s work. Destination: the Gateway State.

 

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Location: the Gateway International Agro Cargo Airport, which has become the subject of controversies.

 

En route Iperu-Ilishan Road from Sagamu Interchange, series of questions flooded my mind, leading to an urgent conversation with the senior colleague. What was the motive for building an airport in this area? Why build an airport in Ogun when Lagos already has one and plans to build another in Epe? How would it avoid the fate of other unviable airports scattered across the country? I asked.

 

They were soon answered by the Ogun State team that comprised the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Engr Ade Akinsanya; Commissioner for Transportation, Engr Dairo Olugbenga; and Consultant for the Gateway International Airport, Captain Dapo Olumide – who received me among a group of select journalists.

 

The team was at home with every question before, during and after the nearly three-hour tour to the airport’s facilities that included a five-storey building control tower, meteorological site, apron, terminal (still under construction) and a camber runway that took more than three-minute drive.

 

Dump site

 

Before the tour, Ade Akinsanya, who threw light on how the project started, recounted that as of 2019, the airport was a dump site.

 

He noted that when he was told by the Surveyor General that that was the site where the airport would be, he exclaimed: “No! It can’t be the location. It is impossible.”

 

According to him, when they drove in, the first 300 metres was trash.

 

“When we were doing the excavation, we had to stack up trash on the road,” he said.

 

Akinsanya added that “but when you come in now, you won’t see trash. It is day and night. The runway is the longest in Nigeria right now. The main runway is 3.4 kilometres, then with the safety zone, an additional 600, a total of four kilometres. The runway is 60 metres wide. The whole aerotropolis is almost 5,000 hectares. And the apron can take 20 aircraft once.”

 

Multiple entrances

 

On location, he explained that it makes accessibility easy, saying: “You can come from Lagos, Ibadan, or from Ikorodu to Sagamu, or from VI to Ijebu Ode, and come through Sagamu Benin Express. And once you get here, there is direct access from the Sagamu Benin Express to the entrance of the airport.”

 

Operating permit

 

Also speaking before and during the tour, Dapo Olumide wondered why the project status is being questioned, saying the one thing holding it is the operating permit.

 

“What they do not understand is that since the good old days of the Federal Civil Aviation Authority, FCAA, we have what they call an aerodrome certificate. But with Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations, Nig.CARs 2023, it has changed now to an operating permit. There is a difference between an operating permit and an aerodrome certificate. Even with the old aerodrome certificate, how many airports in Nigeria comply? We are the first airport in Nigeria trying to attain the status of a full operating permit,” he said.

 

Olumide stated that because the airport is the first to head in the direction of the new regulations for an operating permit, “it means both us and the regulator are on a learning curve. Why it is taking so long is because we are going for an operating permit, which is far more stringent than an aerodrome certificate.”

 

Proximity to Lagos

 

On those wondering why Ogun needs an airport when Lagos has one, Olumide said because it is currently the longest runway in Nigeria, it is suitable for flights coming in with the wide bodies.

 

“You put down a 777 here or an A350, you offload your passengers, guess how long it would take them to get to Lagos by road? Within an hour and a half because there will be buses. All those BRT buses you have in Lagos will be arranged for passengers. When you say this place is too close to Lagos, there is a reason for it, because it gives accessibility to people, which they would not otherwise have,” he clarified.

 

Uniqueness

 

Identifying other characteristics that make the airport unique, he said the runway lighting system is top-notch and the airport is solar-powered.

 

“Also, we have a Doppler VOR, not the regular VORs that you have in many airports in Nigeria. We have a Doppler VOR, which is much more precise and more accurate. The perimeter fence is 12 kilometres. The only airport in Nigeria with perimeter fence.” he added.

 

Speaking further, he said: “Another criticism I get is the airport has much space and nothing is being planned. There is a master plan here. What you see as open space is part of a master plan. Because this is also an aerotropolis. There are going to be hotels. There are going to be amusement parks. There are going to be cinemas in the future. That is all part of the master plan. And you can not put everything together in one day. Rome was not built in a day.”

 

Latest technology

 

Olumide argued that whatever has been procured for the airport, from the light bulb to the socket in the wall, is the latest technology.

 

He said this is necessary because the equipment have to be used for at least 20 years.

 

“There is no point putting something that is good for today to get your operating permit, and then it spoils in six months. We have with us here the very best of facilities. And always bear in mind that we are building something new in this country,” he insisted.

 

He said further: “We are putting a lot of things in place here to make sure that it is future-proof. These lights, for example, can you see the apron lights? If you look at the apron lights, you know when you go to other airports, older airports, they have to use scaffolding. That is why they do not change the bulbs. They use scaffolding to go up there. We have a different system. You can see that one, the lights are on the ground. But this one, the lights are at the top because there is a mechanism to wind it up and put it down. So you bring it down, change the bulbs and up it goes.”

 

Concession

 

On concessioning the airport, Olumide averred that  three companies have expressed interest.

 

“But, you know, concessioning has to be clarified. So we are concessioning the infrastructure of the airport. Because this is slightly different from Lagos in the sense that this is primarily an aerotropolis. And because it is an aerotropolis, that makes it more attractive for a concessionaire,” he explained.

 

Power

 

On power, he said the airport has a dedicated power, adding that certain infrastructure must have uninterrupted power, like a control tower and the runway lights.

 

“In spite of the fact that we have the independent power producer, IPP, here from Shagamu, we also have backup power, which is generators. But we do not want to use diesel generators because diesel is messy. Second, it is subject to theft because you don’t know how much will be supplied. If you want to buy 10,000 litres, you do not know whether it will be offloaded. If the suppliers say they did, you may not know for sure.

 

“And then even when they put it into your tanks, at you don’t know how much of it is being siphoned at night. So you don’t want to use diesel if you can. And then again, for your financial model and your costing, you can’t cost your project based on diesel because the price is not constant. It keeps changing. So you have to use solar as an alternative. You have to use gas, CNG,” he clarified.

 

Internet

 

Speaking further during the tour, he noted: “If you look behind you, there is yellow on the ground. If you look at those yellow boxes, that is actually where the fiber cable goes. You know when you go to some airports, the check-in counter, you see the modem, but for this, it is fiber. It is very high bandwidth. We are talking about 150 megabytes per second because it is fiber. Every point in this airport is connected by a fiber. Then there is a backup to the fiber. We have Starlink on top of this building, on top of the control tower. That is a backup to the fiber because fiber goes down once in a while when people cut the cable when they are building something somewhere.

 

“It is the same for electricity. If there is a problem with IPP, we have the backup power, but we also have inverters. The inverters for the control tower is the size of a sitting room. It occupies that much space, and it provides backup power, intermittently. When the main power goes off, it provides uninterrupted power before the main power comes on. That way, the runway lights stay on, the control tower has its operations going.”

 

Source: Vanguard Newspaper