Unkempt Benin Airport Provides Cover For Stowaway lad

Teenager Daniel Ihekina, stowaway on an Arik Air flight from Benin to Lagos on Saturday, might have

entered the Benin Airport Terminal through the several holes in the airport’s barbed-wire perimetre fencing.

Some parts of the barbed wire have broken off, making it easy for animals to stray into the airport.

Around the airport are bush paths through which people walk to another street on the other side.

A large part of the airport’s surrounding is unkempt, some crops are planted in other areas.

Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) officials said no family member had come for Ihekina.

It was gathered in Lagos that the boy might have been handed over to operatives of the State Security Services (SSS), for further interrogation and questioning by the Murtala Muhammed Airport police.

A source said he was taken by aviation security personnel to “Tango City”, a detention facility around the international terminal, before being handed over to the police. The police reportedly completed their interrogation on the circumstances leading to how Ihekina got into the aircraft wheels and handed him over to SSS operatives for investigations to establish the airport’s vulnerability.

Officers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Police Command declined to comment on the matter.

A public commentator and one time top shot at the Lagos Airport said stowaway is not new to Nigeria. He said there was a similar experience of a teenager who was brought back from Amsterdam in the 1990s. He is growing up today at MMIA as tout. There was another incident in the early 1920s.

He said FAAN is expected to conduct background checks on the staff working at the airport security controlled areas and have airport security fence in addition to Perimeter fence. But what evidence do we have that adequate background checks are done on staff. Today, no Nigeria airport has security.

http://thenationonlineng.net/new/unkempt-benin-airport-provides-cover-for-stowaway-lad
 Author:Kelvin Osa Okunbor, Lagos and Osagie Otabor
Source: The Nation