President Muhammadu Buhari has officially approved the training to arm Aviation Security officers at airports across the country.
The Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, disclosed this to journalists in Abuja while speaking on the sidelines of an event organised by the Abuja Transport and Aviation Correspondents’ Association.
Yadudu, who was represented by the Director, Human Resource and Administration, Norris Anozie, said, “FAAN has been doing a lot of training for Aviation Security officers. We’ve been moving personnel from airports with lower traffic to where we have more traffic.
“A few days ago, or yesterday, the President approved the ability for us to be able to train AVSEC officers who can carry firearms. So we are robustly managing the challenges of insecurity and we are doing our best to give people confidence that things will improve.”
Yadudu said travellers using the airport this Yuletide should not panic about their safety, adding that the Federal Government was working hard to ensure that the airports were free of touts and other forms of insecurity.
He said, “They (passengers) should not be worried about safety, we are on it. The touts who roam around our airports, if you look at Lagos, we’ve moved them all out. They’ve all been taken out.
“And anybody we see around our airports who has no business there will be arrested and dealt with. In other airports, we’ve deployed new people who can observe any threat and deal with it immediately.”