The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has announced that it will relocate its corporate headquarters from Abuja to Lagos, citing the lack of adequate office space for its staff in the nation’s capital as one of the main reasons.
In a statement issued on Friday, FAAN said that many of its staff had to return to Lagos, where the authority had operated for decades until recently, because there was not enough room for them in Abuja.
The authority also said that it was spending a lot of public money on paying duty tour allowance (DTA) to the staff who were technically working out of station, as their official posting was to Abuja.
The statement said that the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, had directed the authority to move back to Lagos after wide consultations with stakeholders, including the unions.
The minister also decided to stop the wastage of public resources and rip-off on the public purse.
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The statement added that the alternative option of renting an office space in Abuja for millions of naira of public money was not feasible, as more than 60% of FAAN’s activities were in Lagos, given the huge passenger volume of the Lagos airports.
The stakeholders and the minister agreed that it was better to save the country this waste and use the old FAAN building in Lagos that can accommodate all its directors and senior officials for now.
The statement assured the public that the relocation of the corporate headquarters would not affect the operations of the authority in Abuja, as it still has full operational offices there.
It also said that the minister has rolled out plans to get concessionaires to build befitting offices for the authority in Lagos and Abuja, and that a final decision on the location of the permanent headquarters would be taken in the near future, depending on the exigencies of the time.
The statement said that the authority and the minister were committed to acting in the best interest of the public and the country, especially as it concerns public funds, and that they would not yield to ethnic or sectional sentiments that would derail this commitment.
