Many state-owned airports are for cheap political gains

IT is no longer news that many state governors across the country have attributed reasons for building airports in their states to such factors including the desire to make  movements of goods and people in their states seamless and above all for economic benefits.

Often when enquires are made on why these governors take airport construction as their top priority, despite other challenges confronting their states, their answers most of the times has always been that ofthe developmental strides associated with the presence of airports in a state.

At the finger tips, over ten states already have airports while about the same number have either embark on the projects of building airports or have such ideas in the pipeline.

States with airports include;Jigawa State, Gombe, Bauchi, Nasarrawa, Delta, Bayelsa and AkwaIbom. Other states that have equally joined in the controversial enterprise includes; Ekiti and Osun while many more states have indicated the desire to build airports for their states.

Ordinarily, the reasons given by some of the state governors to have been responsible for building the airports would have been tenable in a normal situation, had such governors been able to provide other critical needs for the citizens.

Without much ado, it is obvious that many of such state governors that have seen the presence of airports in their states as a priority have only done so without recourse to prioritizing the immediate needs of their citizens.

Many of the so called states with airports today lack more critical basic needs like good roads, potable water, electricity, good health facilities and good schools which are more important to the majority of the citizens than airports.

The contradiction therefore became manifest in the excuse given by many of the state governments who had  laid claims and still laying claims to the unsatisfactory policy of of opening up the state’s to development even when the citizens continue to wallop in abject poverty.

Therefore, the high level of poverty permeating the atmosphere in many of the states with airports has only exposed the governors to the insensitivity and pathetic plights of the masses who formed the majority of the populace.

Rather than meet the needs of the masses,the governors end up serving their political ego with many of the state governors who have dabbled into such projects ended up going on the knees begging the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to take over the management of such airports.

It is on record that many of the state owned airports have turned to wasted public treasures having squandered so much into building them.

Besides the Asaba, AkwaIbom and may be one more of such airports, others who fall into the category  have been taken over by weeds and dangerous animals with one boasting of five flights in a whole year due to misplaced priority and low patronage by the airlines.

The moribund states of the airports despite the huge funds used to build them would have gone a long way in cushioning the economic hardship confronting the states.

Therefore, the statement credited to Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba,that the state governments should have used the fortunes they have wasted and still wasting to build airports and flyovers could have been diverted to tackling poverty.

The statement made by the minister at the end of the Federal Executive Council’s  (FEC) meeting in Abuja last week, though came late, but has only vindicated the positions of many key players who had hitherto cautioned against embarking on the airport projects.

For the states still nurturing the idea of building airports, it is hoped that such desire will be dropped as under the present economic circumstances, what the common man on the street needs is the basic facilities that will make life better and not an airport that will only become an abandoned project or be of benefit to a few.