The Senate on Monday summoned the Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji and the Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah to appear before it on Tuesday (today) to explain the power outage at the main terminal building of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja which forced passengers aboard the British Airways and other airlines to remain in the plane for over an hour after they had landed.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Hope Uzodinma, who gave the order after inspecting facilities at the airport with members of his committee also summoned the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN); the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN); Julius Berger Plc and National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP).
Speaking with journalists after inspecting the airport to ascertain the actual cause of the problem, Mr Uzodinma said that the recurring blackout at airports is unacceptable and must be addressed immediately to save Nigeria from further embarrassment.
The committee members blamed the airport authority for not ensuring adequate power for their operations.
“Since the same thing has happened consistently about three times in the last three months, the development provoked our interest to come here to see things for ourselves. To know what really happened, the cause and to ensure that such ugly incident does not repeat itself again in future,” Mr Uzodinma said.
“We have been told that of the two dedicated lines of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to the airport, one has been recovered and given to the host communities, which is not a bad idea but the problem is that the recovered line has not been replaced. All over the world, airports are run on dedicated lines to avoid interruption.
“Secondly three of the generating sets procured and maintained by Julius Berger Plc that serve as alternatives, broke down at the same time. But in the wisdom of the Ministry of Aviation they have procured three new generators as replacement for the aging generators,” the Senator said.
