The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, has issued a stern warning to the managers of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos, following the repeated incidents of power outage that have plagued the airport in recent days. The minister said he would not hesitate to sack the airport management if they failed to ensure uninterrupted power supply at the airport.
According to a statement from the ministry, Keyamo was outraged by the reports of three total blackouts lasting for about three minutes each at the MMIA within the last three days. The minister said such occurrences were unacceptable and embarrassing for an international airport in this age, no matter the state of electricity supply in the country.
The minister also expressed concern over the security implications of power outages at the airport, especially with the prevailing insecurity situation in the country. He said he expected the airport management to put all the necessary measures in place to prevent any recurrence of blackouts and ensure seamless transition to backup power in the event of any grid failure.
Keyamo, who has vowed to give Nigeria the best in aviation management, said he would not tolerate any inefficiency or mismanagement of resources at the MMIA, especially in power generation and management. He said he would hold the airport management accountable for any lapses in service delivery and quality standards at the airport.
The minister’s directive came after the airport management had issued an apology on Saturday over the power outage that occurred on Friday, February 2, 2024. The airport management had blamed the outage on a fault in the public power supply and said it had restored power within three minutes using its standby generators.
