The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has kicked against President Bola Tinubu’s approval for the relocation of the headquarters of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from Abuja to Lagos.
The ACF in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Professor Muhammad Baba, described the move as a deliberate plot against the Northern region.
According to the Forum, the CBN’s decision, rather than being a normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem, is a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain federal government agencies against the interests of the North and other parts of the country.
The ACF noted that Northerners will be affected by the spontaneous exercise.
The ACF described a viral letter to the minister of aviation from a contractor, avsatel, to relocate the project for the refurbishing of airport rescue and fire fighting vehicles (ARFF) from Katsina to Lagos as one of such deliberate plots to short-change the Northern region by some federal government agencies.
SaharaReporters had reported that President Tinubu’s administration approved the relocation of the corporate headquarters of FAAN from Abuja to Lagos.
The FAAN Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Mrs Obiageli Orah, in a statement on Thursday night, said the relocation followed “wide consultations by the new Management of FAAN with stakeholders, which also involved the Unions”.
But the Forum called on President Tinubu’s government and the National Assembly, to call on those agencies to retrace their steps and apply other honest means of addressing the alleged over-crowding in offices.
The Forum also warned against the relocation of the ARFF project from Katsina to Lagos, noting that the northwest state remains the location for the project regarding the original scope of work.