Blackout Rocks Parts Of Lagos International Airport
Some parts of the Murtala Muhammed International
Airport (MMIA), Lagos has been thrown into darkness for over three hours
without any explanation from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
(FAAN).
Sahara Reporters at the international wing of the airport observed
that the carousel area at the E-arrival wing has been in darkness for
major part of today without any solution to the problem by the engineers
of FAAN.Also, the arrival area outside the terminal to the former car park, Home-tel, which is now used as a staff car park for FAAN officials, limousines and cab operators is also in total darkness.
Passengers arriving from international destinations are made to trek to the car park in darkness, which is over 300 meters from the terminal, thereby exposing them to danger.
FAAN had deployed a bus to the arrival terminal to convey passengers to and from the car park, but only one out of the four buses is operational at the moment, a situation, which makes movement from the terminal to the car park for air travelers tedious.
One of the personnel at the terminal told our correspondent that power supply to that area of the airport had been inconsistent since morning, but could not give reasons for the outage.
The source said: "The power outage at the carousel area has been like that since afternoon. No one seems to know the reason for it as FAAN's officials who are supposed to address the situation has been silent on it."
The Lagos Airport despite its certification by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in September 2017 has been porous over the years.
Several security breaches had been recorded at an increasing rate around the airport in the past with passengers robbed at gun points by armed robbers. Recently Sahara Reporters had revealed burglary of arriving private jets while taxiing on the runway by bandits. Revelations that have forced FAAF to begin cutting overgrown weeds around runways at the airports.
Just about four years ago, armed robbers attacked the Bureau De Change operators at the airport, killing no fewer than three policemen in the process.
Most of the areas outside the terminal are not covered with the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras.