Leadership (Abuja)
Ime Akpan
21 September 2007
Lagos — The managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Capt. Ado Sanusi, has urged the government and stakeholders in the aviation industry to join hands to move Nigeria away from being a safety-deficient zone to a safe airspace.
Capt. Sanusi made the plea in Lagos in an address he presented at a workshop organised by the National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE).
He stated that the spate of air accidents in the country in the last two years "has been a cause of concern to all and sundry."
Consequently, the NAMA boss said the aviation industry "has been the whipping baby of every critic, both novice and experts alike."
However, he said the task of salvaging the sector goes beyond the industry.
"The responsibility behoves on all stakeholders to see the task ahead as a national challenge devoid of all other mundane and parochial interests."
The framework for managing the aviation industry in the country, he said, is vested in the Federal Ministry of Transport, which in turn depends on the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other service providers like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), NAMA, Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) for the provision of all safety critical services as spelt out in the statutory acts of the agencies.
He, however, remarked that "of utmost importance is the role of NAMA, which is the provision of safe, efficient, effective and economic air navigation services."
He said the modern trend in air navigation services is the provision of effective communications, navigation and surveillance systems to drive air traffic services to the highest level of safety.
However, Capt. Sanusi said the task is quite challenging in the face of other competing challenges but that NAMA, in its drive towards safety had embarked on a number of safety-critical projects like the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON), Safe Tower project, acquisition of instrument landing system, data link, among others.
Thereafter, he announced that the Lagos TRACON project had been successfully deployed while civil works for the Abuja and Kano sites would commence soon. Furthermore, Capt. Sanusi said when the other sites in Port Harcourt, Maiduguri, Numan, Talata-Mafara, Obubra and Ilorin are deployed total radar coverage of the country would be achieved.
In furtherance of other safety-critical objectives, he said NAMA had also embarked on extensive human development programme by training and re-training its core and non-core professionals.
"The achievements of these goals will surely contribute significantly towards the improvement of air safety with expeditious and efficient control of aircraft within the Nigerian airspace," Capt. Sanusi stated.
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