One of the indelible contributions of theformer Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Fidelia Njeze in her relatively long stay at the ministry was the programme of providing fences for our local and international airports.

This was obviously in keeping with the growing need to secure the airports against intruders, both in form of animals and humans, who might have unholy intentions.

Apart from the spate of bombings that have confronted the country, which led many to entertain the fear that the anarchists might extend their terror campaign to the airports and aircraft, there had been series of incidents of dangerous intrusions that called for immediate action to keep the airports within check by having fences built round them.

On March 31, 2010, passengers were already seated in an Arik Airline plane in Calabar Airport waiting for clearance for take-off from the control tower when a blue taxi sedan broke barriers and ran right under the plane.

But for the fact that the taxi was not high enough to reach the fuel tank and other sensitive parts of the aircraft it could have caused an explosion that would have turned into a national tragedy as 95 Abuja-bound passengers would have perished.

It turned out that the assailant was a raving mentally unhinged individual, who felt that attacking the plane was his own way of “launching a war against ungodly people” in Nigeria. Almost exactly one year later, another incident occurred at the Bauchi Airport. This time, it involved stray sheep on the tarmac of the airport. A chartered aircraft in which Mr. Fola Adeola, the running mate of the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) rode for a campaign stop, crushed six of the sheep and only narrowly escaped a major mishap.

This left many people wondering why the control tower would allow an aircraft to land when such dangerous obstructions were strewn on the tarmac. It also called to question the seriousness of the staff of the various agencies charged with the responsibility of making the airport safe since they could not keep domestic animals away from the aerodrome.

The fencing of the airports, after this event, picked up at a very commendable speed across the country. However, many questions have continued to trail the seriousness of safety handlers.

For instance, even after the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, Owerri was completely fenced; gaps were still left for people to cross from one end of the vicinity of the airport to the other. In other words, anyone meaning to perpetrate acts of sabotage can still walk into the airport, fencing or no fencing.

Similarly, after the first heavy rains of August 2011, a portion of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport fence in Ikeja, Lagos, collapsed. It took the authorities up to one week to erect a temporary wire fence, and even that could easily be undermined by determined law-breakers.

Another alarm has been raised over the porosity of the Kaduna airport, where a horde of cows recently found their way to the tarmac. The Assistant General Secretary of the Airline Owners Association (AON), Alhaji Mohammed Tukur, who raised the alarm, narrated how flights have often been forced to hover for some time to allow livestock to leave the airport’s tarmac before landing.

We already have our hands full with the threat posed by terrorists without allowing the negligence of safety officials in our airports to result in tragedies. The pathetic thing is that both the Calabar and Bauchi incidents came and went without any official being brought to account for dereliction of duty. If culprits were punished it would have sent the right signal to others.

But the way things are done in Nigeria, even the Kaduna incident may not result in the punishment of anyone.

We are calling on the aviation authorities to take steps to fully secure our airports and not wait until we lose valuable lives and property before the right steps are taken.

If these incidents continue to occur, Nigeria stands the risk of losing her Category One Certification, which she earned from the US Federal Aviation Administration in August 2010, which meant our aviation industry is among the safest in the world.