‘FAAN Officials Spent N450m On Flight Tickets To Sign Documents In Abuja’— Keyamo Reveals Why Headquarters Was Relocated

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has said that the relocation of the headquarters of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) was not made without due consultation.

The minister said the staff of FAAN spent about N450m on flight tickets from Lagos to Abuja to sign documents.

The aviation boss defended the decision to move FAAN headquarters to Lagos on Wednesday during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

He said, “When I was shown the book, I realised over N450m was spent on flight tickets for staff moving from Lagos to Abuja daily in a year.”

Keyamo had directed the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s headquarters from Abuja to Lagos.

But the decision was critised by some aggrieved groups.

The minister said, “So, why do we make this decision? It is not like I woke up one day and made the decision. The new management approached me with the facts and said this is our problem. I asked them what the problem was and they said that some of the directors were here, but the support staff and the departments under those directors had no place to stay and were in Lagos.

“The implication is that daily, you know FAAN is customer service based, and every day, the staff need to meet, make decisions, and all that. For these departments that are in Lagos whose directors are here in Abuja, you will see them (staff of those departments) flying every day from Lagos to Abuja and vice versa to get one simple signature or get one document approved for one small meeting or the other, and this is compounded by the fact that FAAN is not yet digitalised and that is what I met on the ground because they can’t yet exchange digital documents.

“So, they fly every day back and forth. In one year, when they showed me the book, they spent close to half a billion naira on air tickets just for flights between Lagos and Abuja. They spent over N450m on flight tickets alone and I shouted and said what is this? The MD has an office here but she would need four persons and they would fly from Lagos to Abuja daily.”

Recall that FAAN headquarters was in Lagos until the former Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika ordered for its relocation to Abuja in 2020.

Keyamo said, “They all came to Abuja and they had nowhere to stay – all the principal officers – no offices for them, and up till now, they have no offices. The decision-makers, when they came here, they had nowhere to stay and they stayed around for some time before they all went back to Lagos. So, this movement we are talking about, is that most of them are actually in Lagos. More than 100 of the 132 decision-makers are in Lagos. They are already in Lagos and not in Abuja.

“And when I asked them what do they want? they asked if they could all go back to Lagos. It was the top officials of FAAN who requested the relocation to Lagos. It wasn’t the decision of the minister but of course, the bulk stops on my table and I approved it but they made a request, including the unions. I decided that as a minister because those are among the administrative decision that falls within the purview of the minister.”