The government of Ogun State, Ministry of Aviation and other stakeholders, have decided to meet on Tuesday to discuss the planned concession of the Gateway Agro-Cargo International Airport.
The State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, revealed this in a Channels TV interview held on Sunday, stating that the State Government will recover every penny spent on the airport through the initiation of the concession agreement.
He highlighted that the airport’s world-class facilities attracted numerous concession offers.
According to him, “Returns on airport investments are not seen overnight. We have been receiving unsolicited offers from others who are desirous of concessioning this airport and paying us back everything the airport costs us.
“So, for us, our money has worked. We invested in building this airport to de-risk it because we realised that if we had gone ahead and advertised for others to come and build this airport for us, we probably would only have started building it at the end of our second term. So, we decided to bite the bullet. We invested. We have built that airport.”
Expressing satisfaction, Dr. Abiodun announced that one of the offers has been accepted, and the concession signing is scheduled for today, Tuesday.
“I am happy to say that we have accepted one of those offers. By the grace of God, on Tuesday, we will be signing that concession. You will see the Minister of Aviation along with the heads of aviation parastatals signing with us to a third party who currently manages three other airports in Africa.
“This third party would be paying the entire amount the airport has cost us. So, it would now be his responsibility to run this airport in line with the world’s best practices. He would be responsible for bringing traffic to this airport, and I know that he is already speaking to some major cargo companies around the world. We’ve created this enabling facility.
“They said you build a road that connects you from one point to the other, but when you build an airport, it takes you from one point to the rest of the world. And we think that with what we’ve done, we’ve opened Ogun State to the rest of the world.”
