Uzokwe's Searchlight

When we finally entered the arrival hall of the Port Harcourt airport, I was even more disappointed. Nothing in that room made me feel like I was in the arrival hall of an international airport.
Sunday, January 15, 2006



Alfred Obiora Uzokwe

ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS
MY FLIGHT INTO THE NOT-SO INTERNATIONAL PORT HARCOURT AIRPORT (PART 1)
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y family and I chose to fly into Nigeria, during our 2005 Christmas visit, via the Port Harcourt international airport. It was a conscious decision based purely on convenience and its proximity to our final destination- Nnewi. Prior to December 2005, I had never been to that airport but always imagined a well-maintained airport with modern amenities and facilities. Who would blame me for thinking that way? After all, the strategic location of the airport, in oil-rich Port Harcourt, makes it the airport of choice for rich oil sector multi nationals operating in the area. Furthermore, it has become one of the major gateways into Nigeria. It was with all these in mind that one assumed that the Nigerian government was maintaining and upgrading the airport as needed to sustain its international appellation. I was wrong!


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Our plane touched down on the airport tarmac just before 5:00PM on that muggy December 15 evening. There was still ample daylight when we touched down so I had the opportunity to survey the tarmac through the window while the pilot made last minute maneuvers to bring the wide-bodied airbus to a final stop. I kept peering out the window to the inconvenience of one of my kids sitting next to the window. In a very short while, the plane jerked to a final stop. Most of the passengers quickly rose to their feet and began to remove their carry-on bags from the baggage compartment. Disembarkation followed shortly.

My first disappointment came as I walked through the aircraft door. I did not see any enclosed gangway leading directly from the aircraft door into the airport building. Passengers just disembarked onto the tarmac and then proceeded, in a very disorderly fashion, to a walkway about 800 feet away. That walkway eventually led into the arrival hall. While standing on the aircraft stairs, I quickly surveyed the airport precincts and noticed that there was an even bigger problem. The airport did not have any real perimeter fencing around it. No wonder why cows easily strayed into the tarmac, a few months back, and nearly caused a plane accident, I thought. As I pondered this laxity or dereliction of duty on the part of the Nigerian government, it dawned on me that just as cows freely strayed into the airport tarmac, because of the absence of perimeter fencing, arriving passengers could easily stroll out of the airport tarmac, into the city, without undergoing security or immigration checks in the "arrival hall". In this day and age of terrorism, when every nation wants to know and identify every passenger entering it, the Port Harcourt airport had obvious loopholes and no one seemed to care. I was shocked.

The reader might be wondering what security has to do with the international status of the airport. Well, as an international airport, Port Harcourt airport has become a direct gateway into Nigeria. Foreigners could directly enter the country via the airport. It is therefore imperative that the airport have tight safeguards against unwarranted and undocumented entry, be it by terrorists or by those trying to evade the law like Alamieyeseigha. While this writer is in no way equating Alamieyeseigha with terrorists, his case comes to mind here. People have always wondered how he re-entered the country, without being detected by security agents, after escaping from Britain. The truth of the matter is that if he indeed entered Nigeria via the Port Harcourt airport, then the question of how he may have evaded security agents should not arise because the answer is obvious. For the Port Harcourt airport to remain an international airport and therefore one of the gateways into Nigeria, perimeter fencing must be installed immediately. Also, enclosed gangways must be provided with dispatch. The gangways should lead directly from aircrafts into the arrival hall. This way, the issue of discharging passengers onto the tarmac would become a thing of the past.

As my wife and I sauntered towards the arrival hall, still tired from the long plane ride, she busied herself with trying to contain the excitement of my children. They seemed exceedingly happy to be back in their country of origin. They were all over the place, freely gesticulating in response to what they were seeing. As for me, I had become overcome by my civil engineering instincts. My attention was focused on the tarmac and I was not pleased with the condition of some parts of it. Some of the joints between the individual concrete slabs (pavements) that make up the tarmac had deteriorated. At some locations, due to differential settlement, some of the concrete slabs had settled a little bit and were no longer flush horizontally with adjacent slabs. This created undulations not healthy for a tarmac. Granted, it is necessary for tarmacs to be slightly textured to create and maintain friction between aircraft landing tires and the tarmac (pavement). It is however suicidal for appreciable undulations to exist on the pavement. The reason is clear: considering the warping speed at which airplanes touch down, little undulations on the tarmac are capable of ripping aircraft tires to shreds on impact. Just because it has not yet happened at the Port Harcourt airport does not mean that it will not if counter measures are not taken.

The Nigerian government should promptly dispatch engineers with airport pavement experience to work out modalities for fixing this problem. It must not wait for an accident and subsequent loss of lives to trigger action. Remedies may include grinding down those parts of the concrete slabs that are not flush with one another. It may even be necessary to remove portions of the slabs completely to ascertain the suitability and bearing capacity of the soil beneath. If unsuitable soil is encountered, it is removed, replaced with suitable soil and compacted before a fresh concrete slab is cast. As far as funds for the work is concerned, I hasten to assert that no amount of money is too much to spend for the safety of passengers. It may be a localized problem now but we know that every time an aircraft accident occurs, there is no telling who could be impacted. A stitch in time saves nine.

When we finally entered the arrival hall of the Port Harcourt airport, I was even more disappointed. Nothing in that room made me feel like I was in the arrival hall of an international airport. Bags, probably from previous flights, were scattered all over the place and I kept wondering why cases of missing bags were not more rampant in the airport. I looked up and saw a sign that read something like, "In the event of fire, go this way". I followed the direction of the arrow with my eyes, hoping to see a clear egress to the outside. All my eyes met was a wall with an aluminum box over it. I pointed that out to my wife and told her that the issue of fire was being viewed with levity. The fire sign seemed to be there only perfunctorily. In a real fire emergency, passengers would run in the direction of the arrow only to meet a blank wall or at best a louvered window opening. That would spell disaster. My wife merely smiled but kept her eyes on the conveyor belt, which was discharging suitcases at a very slow pace. Passengers had now crowded around it, sweating bullets because the overhead fans did not seem to be having any appreciable effect. The whole place was enveloped with the odor of stale air and perspiration. As I watched other passengers nervously waiting for their luggage to materialize, I kept wondering why a nation as rich as Nigeria would find it difficult to install a working air conditioner in an airport that is as strategic and important as Port Harcourt International. Just the money that the governor of Rivers state uses in erecting billboards all over the state, to ingratiate himself into the good books of Obasanjo, would do to install working split unit air conditioner in the airport. I referenced the governor because I saw several billboards with his pictures and those of Obasanjo at strategic junctions when we entered the city. The caption on one of them read something like this, "the governor and the people of Rivers state stand with president Obasanjo". It was a waste of public money. This is money that could be utilized more efficiently on projects like providing working air-conditioner for the Port Harcourt International airport.

We eventually retrieved our suitcases after sweating it out for close to 60 minutes in the baggage area. Then it dawned on us that baggage carts were essential commodities of sorts. There was none in sight and other passengers had already taken the few in the airport. I was still looking for a cart when a man, dressed in a custom uniform, asked if we were looking for carts and I said yes. "Follow that man going out; when he unloads his suitcases into his car, you can take his cart", he advised. While I appreciated the man's advice, it was rather stunning to me. To get a cart for use in an international airport, I have to follow a fellow passenger outside, to the parking lot, wait for him to discharge his luggage into his car before getting a cart for my use and walking back into the arrival hall. What is this, Iddo motor park? Assuming I was traveling alone, who would keep an eye on my bags while I trailed a passenger to get a cart? From my perspective, that was appalling. It baffled me that simple things were not really simple in Port Harcourt airport. What would it cost Nigerian authorities to provide a bank of baggage carts that passengers could use for a fee? Simply calculate the maximum number of passengers that could land in that airport on a peak day concurrently. Provide carts that would service at least 80% to 90% of the passengers at the same time. The reader should note that one is not asking for free carts. All they need to do is stack the carts in one secure location inside the arrival hall. Passengers would then pay to retrieve and use the carts. This could generate money for maintaining the airport; replenishing old worn-out carts and paying the salaries of the people that man that process. Having said that though, I must point out that the arrival hall needs to be expanded to accommodate a location for stacking the carts. The money that Alamieyeseigha stole would be more than enough to expand the arrival hall and provide a sufficient number of baggage carts. Nigerians should therefore not be fooled by a government that continually tells them that there is no money while officials cart away funds into their private accounts.

On the way to the place where we spent the night in the city, I noticed that a lot of construction work was going on. All manners of road construction equipment, vibratory compactors, graders, dozers were lined up. The name of the construction company was Stemco. I asked my relative, sitting beside me, if Stemco was a foreign company and he laughed. "It belongs to Stella Obasanjo", he quipped. "Are you serious", I asked? "Positive", he intoned. "Was she a contractor too?" I pressed further. "Apparently so", he responded as our bus made its way into the Port Harcourt dusk.

Part two of this article will continue next week. Meanwhile Happy New Year to my readers.