The Wilberforce Chuba Okadigbo airport, located in Ezza North and Ezza South local government areas of Ebonyi State, which was constructed during the administration of former Governor David Umahi, an engineer, remains a subject of controversy, gulping billions of naira without serving the purpose for which it was built.
The facility was inaugurated a few weeks to the end of the Umahi administration. But since it was constructed, the airport has continued to have one issue or the other arising from the construction pattern, preventing smooth flight operations at the airport.
Umahi’s successor, Francis Nwifuru, had told the people of the state after taking the mantle of leadership that the runway was constructed with concrete, which made it impossible for flights to land at the runway and immediately commenced its rehabilitation.
The rehabilitation of the runway cost over N20 billion. It was inaugurated by wife of the President, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu.
After the inauguration of the runway, full flight operations couldn’t commence at the airport. Another issue has been discovered at the airport by the governor, who said the terminal building at the airport was leaking and must be re-roofed for flight operations to go on in the airport without hitches.
He disclosed this to journalists at Abakaliki, the state capital, while answering questions on the airport after the second anniversary celebrations. He said the re-roofing of the leaking terminal building would cost about N2 billion and that the bill has been brought to him by the contractor that will handle the project.
Nwifuru said: “People are just taking the Ebonyi airport issue to the stage that I don’t know. We don’t really have issues in Ebonyi airport. The other day, I saw a post on Facebook where water took over some sections of the airport and I went to the airport myself and saw what happened.
“Originally, some places were designed to be flat roof and it was roofed with concrete. Some places were also designed to be roofed with corrugated aluminum, while very much oven-baked aluminum was used to roof those places and those places that were used with aluminum are not leaking.
“Now, we found out that where we have water collectors and the drainage inside the roof and we started having some leakages there for which you can’t blame anybody. Before, we were blaming some contractors but now we have realized that its not the contractors’ fault.
“So, what we are doing now is to re-roof everywhere. They have brought their bill and it is about N2bn to re-roof it but it’s not an issue. We didn’t give anybody job and the person didn’t do it. If we had given the person job and the person didn’t do it, we would have been saying that the person did a shoddy job. But we hope this is a flat roof and we did a decking. That the decking is leaking is not anybody’s fault.”
