The governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has confirmed that Lagos is about to join the league of states with multiple airports as he says “the Federal Government has granted all approvals for the future Lekki-Epe Airport on a PPP basis.”
Speaking at the Federal Airports of Nigeria FAAN National Aviation Conference (FNAC), the governor described Lagos State as Nigeria’s “foremost aviation gateway and a committed partner through FAAN and the Federal Government in building a stronger, safer and more competitive aviation industry for our nation.”
Mr. Sanwo-Olu explained that the decongest the “Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), which remains as Nigeria’s premier international gateway and one of the busiest airports in Africa, serving millions of passengers annually and anchoring the country’s aviation network” birthed the Lekki-Epe Airport development.
The Governor stated that: “the same success that made Lagos a regional hub have also exposed our constraints, congestion on our air sides and land sides, pressure on our terminal infrastructure, the need for redundancy and resilience and the need to position Nigeria for the next era of global aviation.”
According to Governor Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State is envisioning an “airport that is designed as a Code F- compliant facility, an airport that has the capacity to land an A380 which are widebody aircraft and a plan to run on 3500 hectares of land, roughly just less than 5 kilometers from the Lekki-Epe Free Trade Zone.” He further stated that the master plan is for the airport to have “a capacity to grow to over 5 million passengers annually with modular expansions as the demand grows.”
The Governor described the Lekki /Epe Airport as a strategic response to “help decongest the Murtala Muhammed International Airport and also help at building a resilient MMA that has served Nigeria with distinction for decades, stressing however, that “one airport cannot and should not carry the full weight of our national and regional aviation opportunity.”
Governor Sanwo-Olu noted that plans have started to fall in place to accommodate the development of the new airport project such as the signing of “MOU to unveil the 66km Green Line corridor” which ultimately is designed to pass through the future Lekki-Epe International Airport. In addition, he reiterated that other developments like the Blue line rail which according to him has “moved over eight million passengers and carries more than two hundred thousand people daily”, high BRT capacity and the Red line rail are all infrastructures that have been put in place to ensure that rail, road and air transport can interconnect in the state.
Lagos State is home to over 20 million people. The new airport when completed will be expected to provide a vital transportation link to support the State by relieving the not only the pressures on the Murtala Muhammed Airport but also traffic on roads within the Lagos mainland.