Engineers praise Saraki over NASS intervention

monjola sotubo

January 13, 2017 4:32 PM

The government has said that it will shut down the airport for six weeks, starting from March 8, to enable it repair the runway.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki

The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has praised Senate President, Bukola Saraki for the speedy intervention of the National Assembly in the Federal Government’s plan to

The NSE also spoke against the proposed closure saying that there are other acceptable ways of carrying out such maintenance while operations continue.

“NSE recognizes and praises the effort of the leadership of NASS in driving the transport sector reforms and would like to encourage the executive government to key in,” NSE President, Otis Anyeji said during a press conference.

“The aviation sector is a part of Nigeria’s transportation network and contributes significantly to the socio-economic growth of Nigeria. Any disruption in the operations of this sector, particularly at an international airport that connects Nigeria to the rest of the world, has huge impact.

“A good example is the Uli airport runway which was kept open during the civil war through quick fixes to crater caused by exploding bombs. Another example is the replacement of the aging Frankfurt Airport runway in 2005, closure of runway was not an option.

“All work was schedule in a seven-and-a-half hour night time window over 300 nights in 15m section of the main runway. The replacement material by dawn was hard enough to hold a Boeing 747 and cool enough not to explode its tyres. This and other similar projects are seen as likely template for other airport renovations,” he added.

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Meanwhile, Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika has told the Senate that there’s no going back on the planned closure.

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