Stakeholders urge government to adopt TSA model in fixing insecurity in airports
…Call for synergy among relevant agencies
Stakeholders and experts in the Aviation industry have urged the Federal Government to adopt the United States (US) model of Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has authority over the security of the traveling public in addressing the insecurity challenges in Nigeria Airports.
The charge is coming in the light of the brawl between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) which once again brought to the fore the need for a central security command system at the nation’s international airports.
In Nigerian ports of entry, the inter-agency rivalry has become a recurring decimal. With multiple agencies operating at the airports, clashes among officials of the agencies remain inevitable.
FAAN as the operator of the airport issues on-duty licence to other officials of agencies operating at any of the aerodromes.
At an international airport, for instance, agencies at the airport apart from FAAN, which is the landlord include all the security agencies and paramilitary organisations including the military, the police, the army, the DSS the Customs, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), the Quarantine Service (NIQS), the Port Health, among others.
In carrying out their activities, there have been clashes among the agencies without a clear-cut central command and control.
Each agency operates as an entity not accountable to another agency except its superior officers, thereby causing occasional frictions like the current one between FAAN and Customs, which is generating disquiet at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
Earlier in the week, FAAN accused the Customs Area Comptroller at the Murtala Muhammad Airport Area Command, Mr. Sambo Dangaladima of breaching airport security.
The Authority said at about 1745hrs on Thursday, January 20, 2022, while the aviation security (AVSEC) officers on day duty at Gate 3 were profiling a vehicle trying to access the Security Restricted Area (SRA) via gate 3, the officers in the entourage of the comptroller forcefully took over the gate and opened the gate for the comptroller and his escorts to forcefully access the Security Restricted Area via the gate.
“While we keep on working to resolve all our challenges decisively, we hereby urge all stakeholders to please respect our mandate by being of disciplined and professional conduct in the interest of national security and operational safety,” spokesperson for FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, said in a statement.
Responding to the issue, the service PRO, Joseph Attah, said the action of FAAN raises so many questions, wondering if the authority was trying to aid smuggling by restricting customs in an international airport.
“How can they declare a gate restricted to customs? Their statement shows gross ignorance of the law. Is there any attempt to preserve a particular gate without customs passing through it?
“The statement is a public demonstration of ignorance of the law governing such a place. I will rather advise that people there should engage each other and understand each other instead of having a false sense of superiority. We are all working together for the good of Nigeria. Nobody should think they can restrict another security agency, especially customs in a cargo airport.”
However, the former Commandant of the MMIA, Group Capt. John Ojikutu in his intervention on the matter condemned the Customs’ action, recalling he once arrested some Customs officers during his time for breaching airport security.
In his words, “It happened during my time and I arrested them all who breached the airport security and who claimed they were from the HQ. The airport comptroller then was happy especially when I called the Comptroller General that if you don’t have confidence in your man at the airport remove him and not embarrass him with subordinate officers from outside his command.”
However, stakeholders called for greater synergy between the two agencies in order to understand where the role of one agency ends to avoid this conflict. Undoubtedly in an international airport, Customs’ presence is a given and that is why it is gazetted that an international airport is a “customs airport” but observers say this does not undermine the role of FAAN as the landlord and the controlling authority of the airport.
