By Chinelo Obogo
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Office of the National Security Adviser’s office (ONSA) have agreed to reduce the number of military and paramilitary personnel who directly handle passenger luggage in order to improve efficiency and passenger experience at Nigerian airports. This follows mounting passenger concerns about multiple security checks causing delays and other unpalatable experiences for travellers.
Passengers at Nigerian international airports have faced aching difficulties due to repetitive baggage checks by various security agencies, while aviation experts propose streamlining the process by reducing security personnel or implementing a centralised checking system which would minimise passenger inconvenience and human contact with luggage.
Managing Director of FAAN, Mrs Olubunmi Kuku, at the weekend disclosed that the agency and the office of the NSA have agreed to carry out short and long term measures to address the issue including the creation of a joint coordination room where all the agencies can view CCTV cameras to ascertain what they are looking for.
Mrs. Kuku described the development as disturbing, but affirmed that the issue was the first thing she inquired about upon assumption of office adding that she personally sat down with the National Security Adviser, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu to discuss how to streamline the facilitation processes. While addressing complaints on multiple baggage checks, the FAAN MD said, “On the issues of the checking of baggage, it bothered me so much and that was why it was the first inquiry I made when I assumed office. As far back as 2011 and 2012 when I was in the industry, this was something I have worked on with the former Minister.
“It actually goes beyond FAAN. We have a lot of those agencies, Customs, NDLEA, Quarantine, Agriculture and now, we have the EFCC. Almost everybody is at the airports. We had an executive order 001 during the Buhari administration to move them out under the office of the vice president but now we have the national single window. I have personally sat with the NSA over the last five weeks to have conversations with him as to how we will streamline the facilitation. We have agreed on a few things, the first one is a short term intervention where we reduce the number of agencies at the airports because we have some that were doing just sort of routine checks, just moving around to observe rather than disturbing passengers.
“The second is the longer term, a joint coordination room, we do have cameras, so we are asking all of those agencies, depending on what it is they are looking for, to move to the joint coordination room to look at the cameras and observe and for those that are more concerned with the baggage, they can move down to where we load the bags, that way they have better visibility than disturbing passengers. A lot of countries had issues with scanning devices that were coming from certain countries and as such they required secondary screening. You will see that some of the airlines have companies doing secondary screening on their behalf but a lot of passengers will think that it is FAAN because we are the face of the agency and the airports,” Kuku said.