If a prize should be given to a minister who pulled the wool over our eyes consistently for more than nine months, that award must go to Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika. The minister deserves the cake for the discrepancies in the dates he set for completing the renovation of the Enugu Airport. Over the past nine months, the aviation minister promised and promised and swore that work at the Enugu Airport must be concluded before Easter. We have just celebrated Easter. And the Enugu Airport remains shut. 
Precisely on March 31, 2020, the minister adjusted the airport reopening deadline for the umpteenth time and announced that renovation at the airport was being suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic. That was an unsustainable argument or reason.
Between 2019 and today, the minister made unfulfilled promises regarding the due date for completing renovation of the airport. If we cannot hold the minister accountable for poor service delivery, we must hold the government he serves. When the airport was shut down on August 24, 2019, the minister assured everyone the airport would be reopened before Christmas last year. That imprecise time was given as an irrevocable date for completing the reconstruction of the airport. Like a speech taken straight out of a rolling movie, that date was never met.
As Christmas approached, the minister shifted the scheduled date for completion of work at the airport. He apologised and vowed that nothing would change the new date for completing the work, which he said would occur before Easter 2020. Well, everyone is now a witness to history. The minister has failed his job again. He has toyed with the source of income of many people in the South-East.
The Enugu Airport, as I noted in a previous essay, is strategic for various reasons. It serves as the gateway to the South-East and the Middle Belt regions, and an important doorway to the country. So, opening the airport is critical to many businesses and ordinary citizens who rely on it as a source of their livelihood. Anything that disrupts the use of the airport for business is a direct assault on the soul of the region.
Perhaps Ebonyi State Governor Dave Umahi may have dropped a hint about what was to come when he inspected work at the Enugu Airport earlier in the year. Although he said he was satisfied with the pace of progress, Umahi pointed out that other parts of the renovation such as the terminal buildings would be reconstructed when funds were released by the Federal Government from the 2020 budget. Given the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy and financial plans of many governments, that budget now stands on shaky ground.
That was not the last time the minister would disappoint people in the South-East. Following an inspection of work at the airport on the last day of March 2020, the minister took the nation by surprise again when he announced that the Easter due date for completing the airport renovation had become unrealistic because of, wait for it, the coronavirus pandemic. Keep in mind the announcement was made 13 days to Easter.
On paper, the excuse tendered by the minister sounded intelligible and justifiable. It was understandable because COVID-19 had compelled governments across the world to institute policies and measures to stop the spread of the virus. Some of the measures include social or physical distancing, frequent washing of hands with soap and water, use of hand sanitisers, and so on.
The aviation minister relied on the ill-defined and baseless argument that capital projects suspended on the ground of the impact of coronavirus was a good decision. However, when you subject that explanation to critical examination, you will see that the reason given for postponing the renovation was flawed. Realistically and in line with previous promises, work at the airport ought to have been completed before March 2020.
In that sense, the explanation that the renovation had to be suspended close to Easter because of coronavirus was illogical, weak, indefensible, unjustifiable, unacceptable to the public, and a worthless argument. The government can mislead people some of the time but not all the time. This time, the minister goofed and the gaps in his defective argument were too obvious to be overlooked.
Consider this contradiction in the minister’s argument. When he visited the site at the end of March, the minister told journalists that work was already 90 per cent completed and that the airport needed six or seven days for work to be completed and for the airport to be reopened. He said, unfortunately, that timeline was no longer possible as the workers had to be released so they could be with their families because of coronavirus.
We must never forget that Easter was the minister’s irreversible deadline for completion of work at the airport. Can we hold the minister responsible for failing to keep his own word? Can we pin down a minister who is constantly slippery, always shifting, turning, and failing to keep his words? There is a limit to which a minister can mess up people’s lives.
As recently as January 23, 2020, the same aviation minister pledged that renovation of the Enugu Airport was proceeding according to schedule and that the airport would be reopened before Easter. At that time, he said: “We are almost done with the installation of Instrument Landing System and Distance Measuring Equipment at Enugu Airport. We are on course to reopen the airport before Easter, God willing.”
Again, in October 2019, the minister swore before members of the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation that the reconstruction of the Enugu Airport would be completed before Easter 2020. The minister’s track record of contradictions means we must not take anything he says seriously.
I am stunned that minor renovation of the Enugu Airport has become something of a herculean task for an aviation minister. Renovation of the airport has exposed the minister’s lack of ability. The people and the press must continue to hold bumbling government officials to account. Politicians who are appointed into ministerial positions have a responsibility to serve the people to the best of their abilities.