The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Monday approved the award of a contract for the supply and installation of customized explosive and narcotics detection screening systems at five international airports in Nigeria.
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly Council meeting, presided over by President Bola Tinubu said the scanners will be installed at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Mallam Aminu Kano airport, Kano, Akanu Ibiam International airport, Enugu and Port Harcourt airport, Rivers State.
Keyamo explained that the scanners will relieve Nigerians of past unwholesome experiences and the embarrassment of being subjected to inhuman treatment.
He said: “We have been inundated with complaints of the harrowing experiences that passengers go through at the airports where they have to physically search their bags. I’m sure you all know about that and it’s been really getting under the skin of Nigerians.
“You’ll see various agencies lined up; NDLEA, they’ll say open your bag, Immigration, they’ll say open your bag, Customs, they’ll say open your bag, EFCC, they’ll say open your bag, and they will dip their hands in your bag.
“So we thought we should do something like you have the TSA in America, where you have detection machines. So when they pass your bags through the machines, they detect explosives or any other thing and that’s the end of the search.
“So it’s for the approval of the award of contract for the supply and installation of customized explosive and narcotic detection screening systems, with remote and dual view for the international airports of Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu.
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“Luckily enough, the Council saw the need for this kind of equipment in order to relieve Nigerians of such experiences and it was graciously approved by Council.”
The Council also ratified a Bilateral Air Services Agreement with Guyana, with the intent to ease air travel to Southern American countries.
“This agreement was entered way back in 2014, with the administration at that time, but you understand that international agreements, which are treatises, don’t come into force until their internal processes are completed in both countries.
“Our own internal process here involves a process of ratification of the treatise, so if I go out and sign an agreement with a country now, it doesn’t come into force, it doesn’t bind my country until I come back and then it goes through a process of ratification by the relevant authorities.
“In some cases, where you have to now domesticate it as a law, it goes to the National Assembly to pass into law, in line with the provisions of the constitution. In some other cases, it is just the executive that ratifies. In this case, it does not need domestication, doesn’t need legislation, it only needs the ratification by the executive, which was done today”, Keyamo said.
Meanwhile, the Council approved the memo presented by the Attorney General of the Federation, and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, on the Draft National Response for United Nations Human Rights Universal Periodic Review.
The response has to do with the inquiries by the international body on some alleged human rights abuses in the country such as the allegation that Nigeria engages in recruiting children into the army and the abuse of women’s rights.
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