Fidelia Okafor.

The Minister of State –Aviation, Mr Hadi Sirika has announced that the Federal Executive Council has approved the sum of N1.1bn for the completion of the airport terminal in Kaduna State, North-West Nigeria. He said the project is targeted to be completed within six months.

“Today the Federal Executive Council approved the completion of work on the building terminal of Kaduna airport, which commenced in 2012 and during the rehabilitation, the Consultant noticed some damages to the structure and he increased he scope of work to be done and that necessitated the variation of the contract sum, which was above 50%, so we brought it to council to ratify the cost, taking into consideration the increase in exchange rate of inflation, which has increased the cost of the completion of the work,” he said.

On the proposed closure of Abuja airport, the Minister said it was to give room for renovation, which will take six months but at a point, it will be closed completely for six weeks, to totally overhaul the runway, which has over stretched its life span.

“At such a time, the airport will be closed for six weeks to allow the contractors work day and night, for speedy completion. When that happens, traffic will be diverted to Kaduna airport, from where arrangements have been completed to ferry people by busses into Abuja, with adequate security escort,” he said.

The weekly FEC meeting was also attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo Ita and the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari as well as members of the Cabinet.