Participants at the recent Aviation Safety Roundtable warned that terror attacks at Nigerian airports are highly probable, if not imminent, unless an immediate review of aviation security arrangements is undertaken. The roundtable surveyed the state of the nation’s airports and viewed with alarm the case of a dead body recently discovered in the wheel-well of an Arik Air flight to Johannesburg. The incident underscored the grave security challenges at Nigerian airports.
Nigeria’s aviation authorities should take this warning seriously. Lax security at airports is a danger to air travel and an incentive to terrorists. Secondly, a terrorist attack at any Nigerian airport could wreck the nation’s aviation industry, which is already in distress on account of the current economic recession.
Sources of insecurity at our airports include the absence of perimeter fencing, which often leads to intruders having access to the airports and aircraft. Even when there is fencing, the laxity of the security operatives creates loopholes. For example, a man caught last year as he was about to enter the wheel-well of an Accra-bound airplane, explained how he scaled the fence of the VIP Lounge at the Murtala Mohammed Airport unnoticed to get onto the tarmac. Yet, those are spots that should routinely be under Close Circuit Television (CCTV) watch in addition to physical patrols by security personnel. Industry watchers recorded at least three stowaway incidents last year, in spite of the layers of military and paramilitary security formations charged with the security of the airports.
The airports are essentially gateways into and out of the country. No sacrifice is too great to make them secure, not only to reassure Nigerian travelers but also to secure the confidence of foreign visitors, including tourists. Recent terrorist incidents involving national airlines and tourism destinations in Egypt and Tunisia have been exceedingly costly for those countries in terms of recovering tourists’ confidence. The human and financial costs of such attacks are huge. In monetary terms for countries which make a lot of money from tourism, it runs into billions of dollars.
The security formations at our airports include the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), the Police, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). But, general observations about the conduct of some of the personnel of a number of these organisations show that they see their mission at the airports as a money-making one. Indeed, there have been allegations that some officials bribe their way to get posted to the airports.
Some Police and the Immigration personnel also barely disguise their extortion of passengers. The public seems to have given up protesting. Yet, the solicitation and acceptance of bribes strike at the heart of the integrity of the airport security of any nation. If officials can look the other way if given a bribe, where is the assurance they wouldn’t do the same while a bomb is being smuggled into the airport? We urge the leaders of these security organisations to persevere, knowing that the terrorists need to breach the security only once to create a catastrophe. Security has to be tight at the airports at all times to avert disaster.
In addition to human failings, there are not enough screening machines and electronic scanners in our airports. It is not only that manual searches lead to corruption, they are also not foolproof. We do not think there is adequate surveillance or CCTV coverage at the airports. The most reliable protection against terrorism has always been intelligence, to pre-empt and disrupt terrorist plots. Elementary things like fences should prevent cattle and intending stowaways from getting onto runways, and to stop aircraft from running into animals, as an airplane once did at the Port Harcourt Airport.
To improve security, the airport authorities must deploy intelligence and cutting edge technology. Nothing is too much to secure these critical facilities and the thousands of passengers who use them daily.