The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) is collaborating with security agencies to undertake background checks of all personnel working in the nation’s airports.
Mr Saleh Dunoma, Managing Director of FAAN, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said the move was part of the new security measures to bring sanity to airports.
According to him, the recent incident at Aminu Kano International Airport that led to wrongful arrest of an innocent Nigerian in Saudi Arabia was unfortunate.
“It is very unfortunate that the incident happened and we found ourselves in this but we have gotten to the root of that.
“I attended meetings personally in Kano on three occasions when this saga is going on and we have review the total security architecture in Kano and from that review, we have implemented over 80 per cent.
“We have also introduced certain things in order to check the people that are working at the airport.
“Everybody that is working at the airport, whether you are FAAN staff, NAHCON staff, SAHCOL staff, airline staff because these are people that interact with passengers and we have agreed that everybody must go through background check.
“This background check would be carried out by the appropriate security agencies in this country and then if they find anything doubtful about your character or anything about you we do away with you.
“But there are a host of other things I don’t want to mention here that we have put in place in order to make sure that we curtail the situation.”
Dunoma assured that the authority had also introduced new measures to airport security, adding that new equipment had been provided to assist in curbing the human issues within airports.
He said that the effort led to the arrest of the culprits in the Kano saga, saying that no effort would be spared to rid the airports of bad eggs.
“It is very unfortunate but we are up to the task, we are on top of the game as you could recall that those people were apprehended and they are facing justice.
“And this a warning to anybody or any group that have the intention of infiltrating our security system in order to jeopardise or put unsuspecting passengers in this situation.
“The law will always catch up with them and with the new systems that we have put in place, it will be just an easy thing to handle.
“We cannot say close the airport and sack everybody but every agency is doing something drastic about their staff.
“And not only those that would want to join and those that are there, apart from those that have been apprehended and found guilty.
“We are looking at even the innocent ones because we know that majority of them there are innocent, they are just doing their work but we are checking everybody and making sure that you have the right character and that we can trust you,” he added.
