The governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun, has said that the ongoing Agro-Cargo Airport project along Ilisan-Iperu road in the Ikenne Local Government Area of the state should be ready for commercial flight operations by December.
Abiodun, according to a statement on Monday from his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Lekan Adeniran, revealed this while speaking with newsmen shortly after inspecting the level of work at the cargo airport.
The governor also said that the state government would soon recoup all expenses on this project as various international aviation companies are already jostling for concessional operations.
He added that the concession of the facility would be done in the next one and a half months, with the state recouping the money expended on the facility.
Abiodun said, “I’m sure that in the next 30 to 45 days, we should sign the dotted lines of the concessioning of this airport, which would mean that everything the airport has cost us would completely be repaid back to us and we can use the money to pay our debt and also begin to look at other projects.”
“This airport, sometime by the end of November, December would be fully granted approval. Commercial operations would start here. It means that you can board a flight to Abuja, Port Harcourt, and I am sure that by the end of the year, you will begin to see international flights leave wherever and land in this airport by the grace of God,” he said.
He added, “We are building a truly international airport, and we believe that we as government should be facilitators to the enablers. We have de-risked this project because as much as we believe that as government, we don’t have any business in business, we realise the fact that were we to wait for others to come and build this airport, we would probably be waiting after I must have left office.
“But, what did we do? We decided as government to look for funding and build this airport and then concession it to others, thereby de-risking the project. So, today, what you see is a world-class airport that in itself is attracting the attention of airport operators around the world.
“We have a process that is in place where a few others have expressed interest to get the airport concession to them. It is very exciting that the airport is not completed, and yet people are jostling to take over the airport, pay us all that it has cost us and begin to run this airport. Had we not built this airport to a world-class standard, nobody would come here.
“There are other airports all over the country that different states have built, and I don’t know how much interest those airports are receiving all over the world, but this airport is receiving interest from international airport operators around the world.
“You will see that our initiatives, vision, dedication, intentionality, resolute, our refusal to be distracted by treacherous politicians and backstabbers and our resolved to remain focus, is paying off.”