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By Chinelo Obogo, Lagos
Aviation unions have said it will no longer tolerate any assault on its members who are civilian airport workers by security personnel or it won’t hesitate to direct withdrawal of its members from identified danger zones at the airports.
In a statement signed by the General Secretary of the National Union of Air Transport Employee (NUATE), Ocheme Aba, Deputy General Secretary of Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), Frances Akinjole and Secretary-General of Association of Nigeria Aviation Professional (ANAP), Abdul Rasaq Saidu, the unions said it has become necessary to cry out about the assault being meted to aviation security personnel of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and other aviation workers by national security personnel serving at Nigerian airports.
‘It has become absolutely necessary to cry out about the unceasing assault and brutality being meted to aviation security personnel of FAAN and other aviation workers by national security personnel serving at Nigerian airports. Such incidences have been more prevalent at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and Customs Officers have been most guilty.
‘All recorded assaults by security personnel so far, have arisen from forceful entry or attempted forceful entry into restricted areas by unauthorised security personnel; leaving attendant FAAN aviation security staff brutalised. All such incidences allude to serious security breaches at the airports concerned.
‘The question remains how long these delinquent national security personnel will continue to breach national security, brutalise other aviation workers and carry on flouting civil aviation regulations made for safe and secure operations at the airports? How long shall our unions turn a blind eye to the continuing debasement of the dignity of labour of these hapless aviation workers in the hands of armed and marauding customs officers and other security forces at the airports? We hold that time has come to state clearly that enough is enough.
‘We should warn that our unions will no longer tolerate any further assault and brutalisation of our members who are civilian airport workers. Should there be another incidence of such, we shall not hesitate to direct withdrawal of all our members from identified danger zones in which threat to the lives of workers is allowed free reign. Enough is enough.
‘In the light of the foregoing, we find it necessary and urgent to call the attention of the Minister of Aviation, the Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Managing Director of FAAN and the heads of the security agencies at the airports to put heads together for the purpose of putting an end to assault and brutality against aviation workers, particularly FAAN aviation security personnel, by airports security forces.
‘It should be noted that the airports in question are civil, and not military, airports, which are under the purview of the regulations of NCAA and of which aviation security is an important part. This should speak to the manner of inter-relationship of all security agencies at the airports. Considering that all the security agencies perform important functions, none less than the other, we expect that they should all work with mutual respect for each other, instead of the present anachronism.
‘We call on the heads of all security forces at the airports – the Nigerian Police Force, the Nigerian Airforce, the Nigerian Customs Service, the Nigerian Immigration Service, the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency, and any others, to urgently rein in their officers and bring about collaboration and co-operation among themselves in the interest of National Security and the dignity of other civilian colleagues at the airports’ workplaces,’ the statement read.
