Ebonyi State Airport ready for air cargo operations – Aviation Commissioner

The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Aviation, Ngozi Obichukwu, has disclosed that the state airport is almost ready to commence air cargo operations.

She made this disclosure during a visit of members of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Aviacargo Roadmap Committee to Ebonyi airport.

She noted that the administration immediate goal is to establish cargo freight facilities, streamlining the export processes.

This is coming even as the Coordinator of Aviacargo Roadmap Committee, Ambassador Ikechi Uko, noted that there is a pressing need to increase the volume of cargo, particularly agricultural produce, from Nigeria to boost foreign exchange earnings and generate employment opportunities for Nigerians.

However, speaking during the visit, Obichukwu said: “Currently, we produced the highest number of Groundnuts, our Rice, Palm oil, Yam, salt, are the best globally. Ebonyi State is the food basket of Nigeria. Despite Ebonyi’s exceptional agricultural output, the challenge lies in exporting these goods.

“The strategic location of this airport makes it easy to access Cross River, Abia, Enugu, Benue states among others.

“We are even close to Cameroon. We are already exporting Rice to Cameroon through land, but it would be easy if we freight it, that is why we are in hurry to put the facility in use for cargo freight.

“Last May, the state’s airport was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari during the tenure of former Governor David Umahi, marking the beginning of flight operations.

“During these operations, a significant issue arose concerning the airport’s concrete runway, causing disruptions for incoming aircraft.

“The new Governor has taken proactive measures to reconstruct the runway, with completion expected in the next five months.”

Increase cargo volume

Earlier in his remark, Uko stated that we have 20 cargo airport in Nigeria, yet we are no able to export, as the goods rots, destroys in the farm.

“We have visited Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana among other countries to see what they have done in terms of cargo exportation.

“Lots of our goods are rejected abroad due to packaging, not meeting specifications among others.

“Everybody knows that Nigeria is not doing well in air cargo business. Our position in air cargo in Africa is very low and the solutions to ensure that Nigeria’s air cargo is booming necessitated not only the setting up of the committee but also led to the visit of Ebonyi and other airports.

“There is a need to increase the volume of cargo, especially agri-produce from Nigeria to boost foreign exchange and to create jobs for Nigerians.

“Many cargo planes that arrive Nigeria to drop products fly back empty because Nigeria does not have much to export, yet we have airports all over the country but we have not been able to use what we have invested to solve our problem.

“For Nigeria to increase its export of farm produce it had to adopt a new strategy, which include finding out what the international market needs, cultivating crops following standard processes as every produce that would be exported has a known origin or provenance.

“So, traceability is very important because overseas you cannot consume what you don’t know the source to ensure that it was produced in a healthy manner and in a safe environment,” Uko added.