Airport users complain of car park

Airport users and air travellers in the country are complaining of the large potholes in the car park of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.

Commuters and taxi owners have said that the deep holes, which seem to have worsened since the onset of the rainy season, damage their vehicles.

"How will I say it to my friends that my bumper was disfigured at the airport's basin-hole-filled car park?" said Stanley Chijioke, a car owner who was at the airport to receive his friend who arrived the country [from abroad].

He noted that the money collected at the park's entrance is not visible at the park, stressing that the airport authorities need to do more to address the infrastructural problems at the nation's premier airport.

"For crying loud this is an international airport, and you don't expect us to pay at the gate just to come and have our vehicles smashed, or have or tyres punctured," he said.

Commenting on the issue, Taiwo Adenekan, an economist and member of the Aviation Round Table, a body of industry professionals, said that the presence of such huge potholes in the country's "busiest" international airport does not speak well of Nigeria.

"Those holes at the MMIA car park are so large and should be covered," he said. "The international airport leaves a positive or negative impression in the mind of an individual coming into the country for the first time."

"We pay our dues, but we still don't see what they use the money for," said a taxi owner who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The taxi driver disclosed that they had expected airport authorities to fill up the holes and possibly carry out renovation work on the park before the onset of the rains.

"The rain had actually contributed in the expansion of these holes," he said. "We thought that FAAN [Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria] will repair this park before the rain will start falling heavily in Lagos."

He however praised the management of the Murtala Mohammed Airport 2 (MMA2). "If not that MMA2 is a bit far from this airport, some of this people that visit the airport would have been parking their vehicles there," he said. "The park is properly planned and maintained."

FAAN's comments

Reacting to the development at a summit in Lagos, Akin Olukunle, General Manager Public Affairs for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), said that the authority had been waiting for approval to carry out rehabilitation work on some of the infrastructures at the airport.

"Before now, we did not have approval," he said. "But presently, there is approval and we shall start work in earnest."

He disclosed that the car park is a provisional one, stressing that the authority will build a permanent one. "The car park at MMIA is temporary that is the reason why it is like that," he said. "We are working on a permanent one."