The managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Capt Hamisu Yadudu has said that aviation security personnel would not be given weapons until the agency puts the necessary infrastructure in place to accommodate the arms.
Yadudu stated at the ongoing FAAN-Airports Council International (ACI) Africa, Security Week held in Abuja under the theme ‘Promoting security culture at Nigerian airports’.
Yadudu said while FAAN had received approval from the federal government, the programme had reached an advanced stage adding that a lot of work needed to be done in recruitment and profiling of AVSEC operatives.
“Approval is the most important aspect of arming the security wing but FAAN is a government enterprise. We must follow due process and ensure a lot of accountability and transparency. As of now, we are at advanced stage but as part our due diligence.’’
“Once we get the approval, we have to do a lot of work to make sure that by the time we give the arms, even when you get the arms, we prefer not deploy until we have all the necessary infrastructure on the ground to accommodate the arms. And the training, before you do the training, you have to get the people and even when you do get them, we have to do proper profiling. There are a lot of things done,’’ he said.
Commenting on the potential threats to the airports following recent bandit attacks on transport infrastructures, Yadudu said: “I want to assure the Nigerians and the travelling public that the airports are safe. We are doing a lot of things in terms of security around the airports that we cannot make public at all time, but the most important aspects; we are fully on top of them.
“We have done a lot of training and it is continuous; our security programme is approved by the civil aviation authority, which is not an arbitrary approval; it is a regulated approval from the CAA…,” he added.
On the issue of being up to date on security architecture, Yadudu said: “security is a living process; we might have an airport that is fully protected with the architecture of the security appropriate, then suddenly, it doesn’t have to be something in our airport, something might happen in another airport or in town or a new technology even might render your up-to-date security arrangement vulnerable.
‘’So that is why I said it is a living process and that is why we keep working to ensure that our architecture for security, the trainings, awareness, we do this daily. As the airports security committees have their meetings weekly, we do an overview, deliberate and also communicate with the airport communities to always ensure we carry along all our stakeholders.’’
Responding to a request by the director of airports security service for the approval of additional general managers for the department, Yadudu said “whatever they want, they will get it because we are very fond of our aviation security in FAAN. They are doing us and Nigerians proud; so they will get whatever they want and we can even give them bonus, it is not a problem.’’
In his remarks, a former special adviser to the president on aviation, Captain Shehu Iyal has advised the government to consider as critical the welfare of security operatives at the airports in order to eliminate internal threat and sabotage and encourage patriotism and dedication.
“We have good men; we have the personnel present. All they need is proper welfare. When I say welfare, you as a security agent knows that if you close from work, you know you have a home you are going to and when coming to work, you know there is a mode of transport available to take you to your workplace or some allowance for that; you have launch allowance that will make you work, and if you are sick, there is a clinic dedicated for you and your family to attend.
“These are the major areas that spur patriotism and dedication to duty. We have enough good hands, well trained and intelligent and they have the equipment. If you look into their welfare like I said, you will be shocked at the tremendous improvement that will be recorded,” he said.
