Bashir Dalhatu, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), has shared his perspective on the Federal government’s decision to relocate some departments within the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to Lagos.
During an interview on Arise TV news, Dalhatu questioned the rationale behind moving FAAN, suggesting that if the primary reason is the concentration of airlines in Lagos, then similar considerations should apply elsewhere. He proposed that the Ministry of Commerce should be relocated to Onitsha, Anambra state, or Kano state—recognized commercial hubs in Nigeria—to ensure fairness and equity in government decisions.
In his words;
‘’If you talk about transferring FAAN to Lagos because there are more airline activities in Lagos than in Abuja, then you should take the Ministry of Commerce to Onitsha or Kano because there are far more commercial activities in Onitsha and Kano than in Abuja
You should take the Ministry of Education or Agriculture to Makurdi where there is a lot of Agricultural activities and food production. You can distribute these Ministries to Locations according to the kind of activity you can identify.
But that is not the intention or reason or purpose of establishing a Federal Capital Territory. It supposed to be in itself a symbol of unity, a symbol of togetherness of this country. The moment you start dismembering Ministries back to Lagos, first you are establishing a precedence which means next government that comes on and doesn’t happen to come from the South will now return them or transfer them back to Abuja or Sokoto or Kano or Calabar.”
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