The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has rejected the planned relocation of the headquarters of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from the nation’s federal capital, Abuja, to Lagos, the former capital city of the country, describing the move as a premeditated plan against the north.
An internal memo signed by FAAN’s Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, Nigeria’s Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, had surfaced about a week ago wherein the agency’s headquarters was directed to relocated back to Lagos.
The agency explained that the decision was meant to help to curb the waste of public resources and also prevent the rot of FAAN’s abandoned Lagos building among others
In a related development, the apex bank had earlier approved a policy aimed at decongesting the operational environment of the bank
“This initiative aims to ensure compliance with building safety standards and enhance the efficient utilisation of our office,” the memo read.
The ACF argued that the CBN’s decision rather than being a normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem, is a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain federal government agencies against the interests of the north and other parts of the country noting that northerners will be affected by the spontaneous exercise.
In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Professor Muhammad Baba, ACF pointed at a leaked letter to the minister of aviation from a contractor, avsatel, to relocate the project for the refurbishing of airport rescue and fire fighting vehicles (ARFF) from Katsina to Lagos as one of such deliberate plot to always short change the northern region by some federal government agencies.
The forum therefore called on the federal government and the National Assembly, to call on those agencies to retrace their steps and apply other honest means of addressing the alleged over-crowding in offices.
It also warned against the relocation of the ARFF project from Katsina to Lagos, noting that the northwest state remains the location for the project as in the original scope of work.
