The House of Representatives has asked the National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and commercial airlines that diverted flight to Kotoka Airport, Ghana, to compensate affected flight passengers.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion of matters of urgent public importance moved by Wale Raji on Tuesday.
Raji in his motion pray the House to mandate the House committee on Aviation to liaise with relevant agencies to ensure that the navigation equipment that resulted in the diversion of flights from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport is resolved.
The lawmaker from Lagos in his motion said the federal government budgeted N7.8billion for the procurement of navigation equipment for Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Katsina, Maiduguri and Sokoto Airports.
Several flights due to land at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos were diverted to Ghana as the Airlines blamed the lack of Instrument Landing System (ILS) for the situation.
Speaking on the motion, the Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechukwu said the people responsible should be sacked.
“The instrument landing System is there, and we are talking about calibration, the people responsible should go. Before you remove navigation system, there should have been replacement.”
He stated further that the local airlines using the airport are being exposed to danger.
“We are exposing our local airport to guess work. The House Committee should investigate.” Adding that the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Seriaki should take responsibility for the situation. “The agency heads report to the Minister and the Minister reports to the President. We do not need to shift responsibility. This should not even have come up.”
The House had a long debate on who to take the responsibility for compensating the passengers that were stranded in Ghana. The debate followed an amendment made by James Faleke who moved that the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) should compensate the passengers.
The House therefore resolved that the responsibility should be between the agency responsible for the equipment and the airline that left passengers stranded.
