The Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its meeting on Monday approved the sum of N3.2 billion to procure modern scanners for five international airports in the country.
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace, Festus Keyamo, said this while briefing the State House correspondents on the outcome of the meeting in Abuja.
The airports are the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Murtala Muhammad International Airport, Port Harcourt International Airport, Aminu Kano International Airport and the Enugu International Airport.
“This is what Nigerians would be interested in because since I came to office we have been inundated with complaints of the harrowing experiences that passengers go through at the airport where the airport officials of various agencies have to physically search their bags and it has been really getting under the skin of Nigerians.
So we thought we should do something like where you have the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in America where there are detection machines that when it passes through your bag it detects explosives or any other thing and that is the end of the search.
So Council gave approval of a N3.2 billion award of contracts for the supply and installation of customized explosives and narcotics detection screening systems with remote and dual view.”
Bilateral Agreement
Mr Keyamo also said FEC ratified Nigeria’s bilateral air service agreement with the Republic of Guyana.
According to him, the agreement was signed in 2014 but had not been ratified since then.
He said with the ratification, Guyana can now have direct flights to Nigeria.
“We have entered into an agreement with Guyana, a South American country. They have been very anxious to have direct flights from Guyana to Nigeria. This agreement was entered into, way back in 2014 with the administration at that time but it required ratification by the Executive and that is what was done today, “the minister said.