For several years the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria warned encroachers of its property at various airports in the country, but many of them defied the warnings, especially the illegal occupiers of the agency's land at the Lagos airport. Emotions were raised when buildings located at sensitive areas of the airport were demolished, but such would have been averted if the warnings were heeded to, writes Chinedu Eze
There is a tendency in Nigeria to regard property owned by government and its agencies as nobody's property and there is growing tendency of impunity whereby many Nigerians believe that they could use inducement, connection, the court or the media to intimidate government and illegally occupy or take over government property.
The history of the imbroglio between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and Nigerians who illegally occupied the agency's land at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos has been a long one.
THISDAY investigations revealed that there have been different categories of Nigerians who defied the rules and encroached the land, which is part of the airport premises. The first were those who worked in the aviation industry, either as former staff of the defunct Nigeria Airways, former staff of aviation agencies like FAAN itself, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA). A retired staff of one of the agencies told THISDAY that it was these set of persons that had the effrontery and knowledge to take over plots of land they know belonged to the airport.
Another group of persons were Nigerians whose lands were close to the airport premises who subtly destroyed the fence over time and extended their own land to that of the airport and left those areas open. The third group, were those who were deceived by land grabbers who sold the land to them without the genesis of who originally owned the land. Some of the victims of the land grabbers were Nigerians who lived overseas who bought the plots of the land, developed them, rented some of them out and travelled back to their countries of residence.
Out of these groups the most defiant were the former aviation workers, including aviation labour union leaders who had at different times engaged in litigation with FAAN, who exhibited air of entitlement and impunity and who refused to leave the occupied land despite persuasions for them to do so. A retired staff of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) told THISDAY that these set of persons see taking over these plots of land "as their compensation for their contribution in the industry."
Land Grabbers
It is not only in Lagos that FAAN is facing land encroachment problems. In fact, this is a familiar experience at many airports managed by FAAN in Nigeria. The agency occasionally slugs it out with host communities and other land grabbers at various airports. THISDAY learnt that there is regular runway incursion at many airports in Nigeria, where host community erode airport barriers and utilize the runways or lands around them for farming, sunning their farm produce and other sundry uses. Also, few years ago there was a case in Enugu, where an indigene allegedly broke airport fence in defiance against FAAN management in the struggle to possess plots of land with court judgment.
In reaction, the Enugu State Government pulled down a twin duplex belonging to a man, known as Jonathan Emejulu who demolished the fence of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, while executing the judgment of Enugu State High Court.
The court was said to have ceded an expanse of land in Airport Road Layout, Phase IV and V to Emejulu, who in Suit No. E/ 165M/2020 returned to the court through an application by Motion on Notice for the court to compel the Commissioner of Police, Enugu State and the Inspector General of Police to execute the court judgment.
However, the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA), which demolished the duplex, said it was blocking waterways, and flow of storm water.
A Notice of Violation served by the Department of Building Inspection also stated that the building violated building standards. But Emejulu said he was unfairly targeted by the government for daring to execute judgment of the court to reclaim his property.Also, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who visited the site, condemned the demolition of the perimeter fence at the airport.
The Ilorin Experience
It was a similar experience in Ilorin where FAAN's land was encroached and the agency warned the land grabbers and threatened that when the agency needs the land it would demolish whatever structures erected at the said land. Of course, such demolition would trigger emotions, as happened in Lagos two weeks ago.
In giving out the warning, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria decried the encroachment on its land in Ilorin and environ and that people had been encroaching on FAAN land covering parts of Wara village, Gerewu, Aleniboro, Ilorin West Secretariat, Gaa Odota, and Obanisua.
FAAN said that the government would eventually need to develop the same land and would have no option than to demolish anything found on the sites.
"The unfortunate thing is that some would have bought the land illegally and built on it, and by the time the government is ready to use the land, there will be a big problem. Buildings constructed illegally on government land will be demolished, just as it was done in Abuja and some of the buyers of the land might have retired from active service causing them a lot of distress.
"We have met with the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu Gambari, to pacify the Magaji's (community leaders) and their subjects that are selling FAAN lands to find a way to stop them. We have also met with the community leaders on several occasions; pleaded with them to desist from selling the land and to also stop their children and wards from doing the same," FAAN said in a statement.
So, this experience is not peculiar to Lagos. THISDAY authoritatively learnt that in some airports in Nigeria under FAAN management, host communities have track roads that crisscross runways and good examples are the Kaduna Airport and the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa. Such encroachment is security breach and it is not easy to manage such incursion. There have been occasions when communities set fire on their farms and it spread to the airports. Few years age it happened at the Port Harcourt airport and FAAN fire fighters had to put off the fire.
Earlier Warnings
It has to be noted that the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Lagos state government had warned illegal occupiers of the agency land in Lagos.
In 2019, FAAN was poised to demolish some buildings illegally built on FAAN land, as reports then indicated it had reached advanced stage for FAANto commence demolition on the said buildings. FAAN was working closely in collaboration with the Lagos State Government to commence the demolition exercise then and it was reported that iff FAAN carried out its threat, no fewer than 2,000 illegal structures at the Ajao Estate and Shasha area of the airport would be affected.
Some of the houses at the Ajao Estate and Shasha areas of the airport were built close to the runway, while hundreds of such buildings have encroached into FAAN land. For instance, a particular estate at the Ajao area of the airport named its estate Runway View Estate because of its closeness to the runway and efforts by FAAN to dispossess the illegal occupiers of the structures in the past years had not been successful because many of the occupiers had approached different courts across the country to stop FAAN from carrying out its threat of demolition.
Demolition and attendant controversy
As expected, nerves were frayed, emotions were stirred and angst welled up when some buildings were demolished a fortnight ago at Ajao Estate, Lagos. The matter started taking ethnic and political dimension oblivious of the fact that for many years FAAN had warned illegal occupiers of its land to vacate and the agency was defied.
The Managing Director of FAAN, Captain Rabiu Hamisu Yadudu, had explained that the buildings demolished at Runway View Estate at Ajao Estate were illegally constructed and left standing in the positions that were clearly very dangerous to flight operations.
"A few days ago, we had a session at the House of Representatives and we made it clear that our motive and primary aim of the exercise was for safety and security of flight operations and also the safety and security of those inside the house. The exercise is for the dual purposes of our own safety and security and overall, for international standards.The exercise is concluded and I am very sure the House Committee on Aviation will communicate to Nigerians on their fact finding on the exercise that we just concluded," Yadudu said.
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On how to prevent future encroachment, Yadudu said there would be removal of illegal buildings by FAAN and there is purpose and direction for removing the illegal structures, noting that the illegal owners of the demolished buildings might have lost money, but we saved lives.
"FAAN will continue to do oversight, monitor and carry out surveillance of the place in conjunction with the other residents of the area, but it is a case of direct and willful disregard to the authority and rule of law. That was what created it. We also have regular patrols in those areas. We are going to quickly re-erect and protect the fencing and lastly, we have procured a radar surveillance patrol system, which is automatic and zooms around 360 degrees with a radius of about 8km, which means it goes beyond the airport itself. It can spot anything beyond the airport. We spent about three years processing it and right now, it is on the high sea for installation at Lagos and Abuja airports. If it detects any image, even a rabbit it will focus on it.
"We also bought a mobile rationale video for that purpose. We have the automatic and the manual patrols. They are very effective for the people residing in the area. What went on is not for lack of patrol, but for clear willful disregard to the laws. It has always been protected. People are not listening. They kept on building. Now, we have a bigger reason - the recertification of the airport. The international community knows it is a violation of safety. When we got the first one (certification), these factors were among the issues they raised and they gave us time to remedy it before they return for recertification. We told them to give us one year to address it, but it took us four years to achieve. So, it took so long because we were briefing the residents on development. This is something that has been happening over the past 30 years. For the time that it happened, we were not there, so, I can't answer that.In fact, we were forced to take this action, but there is the need for us to protect the airport for recertification," Yadudu further said.
The lesson learned in this incident is that no matter how connected and influential one can be, the arm of the law is far reaching; therefore, it is better to abide by the law than to face the wrath of the law.
