After Moving CBN From Abuja, FG Orders Another Agency to Relocate Headquarters to Lagos
- The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is moving its offices back to Lagos
- The development is per the directive of the Nigerian government to save cost amid current economic realities
- FAAN said the agency occupies a rented building in Abuja where it pays millions while its building in Lagos is rotting away
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The Nigerian government has announced the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) headquarters from Abuja to Lagos.
According to FAAN's public affairs and consumer protection statement, Obiageli Orah, the minister of aviation and aerospace development, Festus Keyamo, made the directive.
Source: Twitter
FAAN occupies a rented space in Abuja
FAAN said the directive followed a comprehensive consultation by its new management and the unions.
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Per Orah's statement, it was agreed that the relocation was in the agency's and the country's best interest.
The statement said:
"It was ill-advised in the first place to move the headquarters to Abuja when there was no single FAAN building in Abuja to accommodate all of them at once.
The agency said the minister decided to stop the waste of public resources and rip-offs.
The decision was taken to avoid waste
TheCable reports that FAAN said other options available to the agency were to abandon the old FAAN building in Lagos to rot away and use its resources to rent an office space in Abuja for millions of naira of public funds when 60% of its activities are in Lagos due to the volume of passengers that come via the Lagos route.
It said stakeholders decided against that to save the country's scarce resources.
FAAN stated that the minister planned to get concessionaires to build offices for the agency in Lagos and Abuja, and until that is done, it will carry out its activities from the Lagos office.
"Abuja continues to have full operational offices, and the authority has yet to scale down operations in Abuja.
Last year, Hadi Sirika, the former minister of aviation, had said the office spaces occupied by FAAN, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in Lagos would be demolished for a more ambitious plan, and the senate cannot stop the demolition.
Sirika said the aim was to turn the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, into an aerotropolis — but the plan was delayed.
The move seem to have irked some elders in the North who frowned against the development.
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), a pro-northern socio-political group, has expressed its strong opposition to the resettlement of crucial sections of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to Lagos from the Federal Capital Territory by President Tinubu
The ACF said that the relocations were a deliberate attempt to further marginalize and underdevelop the northern region of the country, which already suffers from various challenges such as insecurity, poverty, and unemployment, Legit.ng reported
Moghalu addresses CBN’s relocation plan to Lagos
Legit.ng earlier reported that Kingsley Moghalu expressed his support to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s plans to relocate key departments from Abuja to its Lagos office.
This decision has stirred reactions by some Nigerians and some workers at the CBN reportedly expressing “disquiet” about the move.
On Friday, January 12th, the CBN issued a circular outlining its plan to decongest its Abuja headquarters, citing exceeding occupancy levels and concerns over health and safety.
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Source: Legit.ng
