Thanks all responders for their efforts at battling the fire
Says the fire incident will hasten movement away from the old terminal
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Barrister Festus Keyamo SAN has ruled out any act of sabotage in the fire that gutted and Terminal One building of Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos on Monday.
The minister who refuted the claim on Tuesday while addressing journalists after an inspection tour of the burnt facility, thanked all responders for heeding the call to combat the ravaging inferno even as he affirmed that the fire incident will hasten movement away from the old terminal to the temporary terminal.
“First of all, we must thank those who were the first responders before we begin to explain conspiracy theories. Those who responded first in disasters like this, we look at those who helped to save lives and to ensure that we did not have more damage than we already have. So let us thank all of those who helped us, those who are also our partners in such emergencies, the Lagos State Fire Service, and some other entities that helped.
“Our staff in FAAN too, the fire department, the Managing Director, most of the directors were on ground. I want to thank all of them very, very much for what they did. Now, for the conspiracy theories, we cannot say much now, ” he said.
The minister however said the real cause of the fire would be made public as soon as thorough investigation into the incident must have been completed.
“Later we can decide to look at the cause of the fire and all of that. But let me first of all clear a few points. One, it is not the new terminal that was affected,”
He added that though the fire incident was not a thing to rejoice on, he however reasoned that it would hasten the movement of occupants out of the building before the commencement of the rehabilitation works,
“It is the terminal that we are about to pull down. I won’t say fortunately because there is nothing fortunate about fire. So even though we are trying to pull down this old terminal, there were certain equipments that we also needed to retrieve.
“Certain persons that also needed to leave the old building for us to start work on the old building. So let me assure Nigerians that even before this fire, if you look behind, we had already made temporary arrangement to move most of the airlines, of the entities in that space to the temporary place provided by the CCECC What this has just done is to hasten our move away from the building,”
“The building was about to be pulled down anyway and totally rehabilitated. However, a lot of our equipments were damaged. Where we went up to at that time, you saw, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Because still not safe to go to the 5th and the 6th and the 7th floor. I mean, so many, for example, our Nimet equipment, our Nimet office where they read weather, that is totally gone. I’m sure you saw most of the air traffic controllers who were also, our air traffic controllers were trapped up there yesterday too.
The minister who was led by the Managing Director of Federal Airports Authority (FAAN), Mrs Olubunmi Kuku and other directors from FAAN thanked God that there was no single fatality recorded in fire incident, however lamented the loss of vital operational equipment which will cost a lot of money to be replaced.
“Many of them had to be rescued by crane. So, some of our equipments are damaged, but mostly, like I said, for the building itself, we were about to pull down the building anyway. For conspiracy theories, we won’t go into all of that for now.
“We just want to thank God that there was no single loss of life. That is the first gratitude we have to God. In this kind of situation, we first look at the loss of lives.
“We thank God for that. But between you and me, work will start in earnest to start clearing the rubble. And then, of course, it will hasten our process of the reconstruction.
On pulling the building down ill-fated structure, Keyamo said the construction companies are already on site waiting to resume work.
“They are on site already, I’m sure. You have seen that the bridge is down already, this bridge, linking up this part of the river. They are reconstructing the new bridge to the new terminal.
“They are on site. The CCECC is on site already. We are just waiting for people to evacuate.
“This place would have come down anyway. We are just waiting for people to evacuate. So, this fire actually helps to just, well, not help, but this fire will hasten our movement away from the place,” he insisted.
