Nkechinyere Ewa-Okpara
Francis Nwifuru Governor of Ebonyi State Friday commended the dogged effort of Ngozi Obichukwu Commissioner for Aviation in the State in the Rehabilitation of the Chuba Okadigbo International Airport located in Onueke Ezza South Local Government Area.
RT Hon Nwifuru gave the commendation during inspection of projects in the state as part of activities marking the 2024 1st October celebration in the state.
Represented by the Deputy Governor Princess Patricia Obila, the Governor noted that Ebonyi has invested billions of Naira in the airport and would reap the dividends in no distant time.
While describing the airport as one of the best, the governor expressed hope that having gotten every other approvals, the federal civil aviation authority would soon approve flight operations in the airport.
“I want to commend your efforts. we have really improved and done alot of thing here. And my Governor and the entire good people of Ebonyi State we have really invested billions of money here and by the grace of God we are going to reap it .
“And as you can see this airport remains the best I know what I am saying both in equipment and every other thing. And as we said every other test,every other approval have been gotten soon and very soon we will commence flight operation and every other person private or public will land safely in this airport.
“Ma’am we appreciate your efforts here God bless you.
And to our late brother, well we will celebrate him because he has written his name with golden pen in this airport maybe one of the plazas’ will be named after him. Please put it up as a proposal and I know my boss will approve it”.
The Commissioner for Aviation Ngozi Obichukwu while addressing the Governor and his team said between now and November flight operations will commence at the airport as they awaits approval from the airport authority.
“This is the 3.1 kilometre runway that was alphated when our Governor came on board. This runway was supposed to house atleast four aircraft at a time because of the size and this runway was already constructed but not properly done because of the concrete so when we took off flight operation , Some of the flights couldn’t cope with it but now this runway has been completed . we started October last year and this year we completed it by July 8 but on a sad note the engineer that did it for us couldn’t wake up on Saturday.
“His Excellency Governor Francis Nwifuru has lived up to his promises about this runway. And I want to announce to us here that the Federal civil aviation authority had already come to inspect the runway and applauded our dear Governor we can’t get any other runway as best as this across the country. we are looking up to them from now to November to get approval and we will commence flying and we will definitely fly”. Obichukwu said.