The Consultant Engineer to
State Government on the MKO Abiola International Airport, Ido-Osun in Osun
State, Engineer Wemimo Adebajo, has said that the airport on completion will
rank among the best with longest runways in Nigeria, reports ITRealms.
Adebajo, during an inspection
tour of facilities at the airport with journalists noted the present site
of the MKO Abiola International Airport was the first place where aviation
activities took place in the whole of West Africa.
Director, Bureau of
Communication and Strategy to the Government of Osun, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon,
quoted the consultant, as saying that the percentage of work done at the
airport noted that government, having spent N2.7 billion out of the revised
total cost of N11billion for the project, work could be said to have reached 25
percent.
He also said that the West
African Frontier Force was lifted from the Ido-Osun aerodrome, the present site
of the MKO international Airport project during the world war II, hence the
conscious effort by the state to make it the best in Nigeria if not in Africa.
The tour of the facilities, he
said, became important to afford journalists adequate information about the
magnitude of the work done in order to situate the criticisms of the opposition
in their proper context.
The runway of the airport, he
said, is waiting to be laid with 500 mm asphalt is 3.5 kilometre in length,
12.3 metres excavation and re-filling with laterite. He added that both sides
of the runway are equipped ab initio with water pipes which will
be the first of its kind in Nigeria.
Adebajo explained that with
such a feature, the airport will have been equipped with facilities that will
make emergency fire-fighting readily available near the runway in case of any
emergency landing or fire outbreaks.
Pointing out that though the
runway has not been completed, but in case of an emergency, the runway at its
present state could be used by any pilot to land an aircraft at the MKO
International Airport.
"Still more to be done, I
believe the airport is good for the state. The main delay right now is a
question of funding and the state is seeking ways on how to make it available. We
are approaching the Federal government for 50 percent of cost of building the
airport which is Federal Government policy, right now. What the contractor is
doing is site maintenance so as to ensure that when work resumes there won't be
any case of deterioration of the huge work that had already been done here,"
Mr. Adebajo said.
Nenye Dom/GEE+ITRealms DSA
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