--says Fagbemi (managing director of Maevis)
by Lateef Lawal
The Managing Director of Maevis Nigeria Limited, Mr Tunde Fagbemi, in this interview speaks on airport development and how far his company has gone on the Niger State Government's mega airport city project for the State capital, Minna.
What can you say about airports development in Nigeria in relations to the Minna Airport project?
The federal government of Nigeria has in his wisdom built 22 airports, and whether you like it or not the one in Lagos has actually developed beyond an airport city.
It has turned to be a mega city. The unfortunate thing is that while they were developing the estate around the airport, they didn’t not plan it to include industrial estate in a very fashionable manner, housing in a very fashionable.
So you will say Lagos has lost that opportunity. There is another airport that has that opportunity or advantage today; it is the Abuja International Airport.
But again, it is far from town and the Abuja metropolis is struggling to develop into a city on its own. Therefore trying to make an airport city out of Abuja airport may be a challenge in itself.
Again, don’t forget that it is like Andrews Airport to Nigeria that is where the President takes-off and land and occasionally they have to close that airport for what I call safety and security movement of very important personalities (VIP).
Now, what we then did was look at the proximity of Nigeria itself to Europe and look at the proximity of Europe to the rest of the world, especially Nigeria.
If you truly look at the map of the world, you will find out that Nigeria is basically in the middle of the world. Therefore if you leave say Singapore which is farthest to your right and you fly 13 hours you will be in Nigeria.
If you leave Nigeria perhaps to Sao Tome or Argentina, you will probably be there again in another 13 hours maximum. If you also went up to Canada, maximum 13 hours you will be there.
Minna presented a very unique advantage and the Governor of Niger State, has taken extremely good care of that advantage.
What have we done so far, I am happy to report to you that the following has been completed: we have completed the master plan, we have completed the economic plan, we have done the first of the (IM) which is called the information memorandum.
We have spoken to the major financiers; I confirm that we have the first set of financiers, basically on line. The implementation now requires the following: because we need to apply to export processing and free trade zone, we have spoken to NEXA; NEXA is currently processing the last of the papers to grant them an export processing zone.
So, the whole of the airport and the apportionment of about 10 kilometers round it is all going to be like a trade free zone. Then people who live in that free trade, some of them are expatriate, Chinese, and some are British.
They will have factories there, those factories will process things. If they don’t leave Minna to come into Nigeria technically they are still in quote, a foreign land. When they are finished, they will load them in the aircraft and then the aircraft will go to London.
We have secured already manufacturers from China who have agreed to do their winter manufacturing and complete their early winter, winter manufacturing in Minna.
What do you mean by winter manufacturing in Minna?
It gets very cold in China around December, November, so there are shut down in a few places there.
So what they do now is that they will stock a 747 aircraft full of semi finished things, bring them to Minna and complete the manufacturing technically in Minna and then export it to the shops in Europe for winter.
They are training people as I speak to you, and they are ready now to say, this is the future in which that place is going to go.
Would Minna work? It will work for two reasons. If you look at the photographs that were shown yesterday when there was a lot of traffic, it came from the eastern flank of Abuja, that is Yanyan.
That place has a huge quantum of people. There is another place which is Suleja, and the idea is rather than attracting migrant workers only into Abuja, what we want to do is to create a Suleja in between Abuja and Minna where the qualified workers exist and the then the push pull effect of migrant labour would not just come from Suleja into Abuja every day, they will go from Suleja into Minna, finish what they want to do, come back into Suleja.
And even the educated, very, very qualified wives, children of the civil servants who don’t have factories to work in Abuja, they can leave Abuja in the morning by 6am, just like you leave Epe or Ajah by 1 hour you will be in Minna.
You will work in the Minna airport city with your qualified children and you would have finished and come back.
If you are in Lagos for instance we have agreed also, we are talking to an airline and that airline will be positioned in such a way that they can pick you for a weekend trip, pick you for a daily trip, you go to the airport city, you shop duty free.
If you buy in excess of your average duty free, which is the basic business travel allowance then you pay based on whatever. So if you enter Minna it will be like you just travel to London and you are doing your shopping the way it should be done.
Immediately you finish buying it, you will come back to Lagos, you will pay the normal duty on it. But if it is personal effect it is the same way you will bring your personal effect from where ever.
So we are trying to create a little Dubai, if it works and we believe it is going to work, then the rest of West Africa, the rest of Africa will just turnout to do their holiday in Minna. But the second thing that has happened to the governor, and I should also say, he then recognised that of the of the five big games, that the white man wants to see or shoot, he owns within his state.
He owns Yankari games reserves, he owns the Shiroro games reserves, and the Oyo National Park. Because he has that, he has elephant, hippopotamus, lions and so on. We have also discovered that there are Europeans who want to just come, maybe 5000 of them every year to come and watch and see these animals in their wild.
The Kanji airport base exit, so there is a landing strip. The Shiroro landing strip exist, so we will try and bring in 5000, 10,000 foreigners come in the first 2, 3 years. Imagine if you bring 10,000 people who spend $5000 each, that $5000 doesn’t stay in Minna, it goes to the village of Boso, and goes to new Busa.
And the people in that place will now start breeding chicken; they will now start breeding egg. So the income percolates even to the rural area. So he is committed to it, and I am happy that the thing is working.
Like they say sometimes what do you see first, buildings or plans? We are doing more planning so that we execute a good roll out rather than put mortar on each other.
But I tell you within the next six months you see rapid development because the thought process is clear and it has been properly taken care of and the right environment is being created. Lucky for and luckily for Nigeria he has been voted in the second time.
How long and how much has been spent so far?
How much has been spent so far is something I always joke about. There is cash capital and there is intellectual capital. I worry more about intellectual capital I never worry about money. Because if money can be recovered, money is also relative.
But if you have got good advice that can ensure that every amount of money that you spend, you are able to make 10, 20, 30 times of that back and you are able to transform the lives of the people.
What this gentleman is doing is not spending money now, he is actually doing an economic regeneration programme that would transform the lives of all of the people of Niger State. It is a very huge budget, it is not about money.
Each time when they say how much did we spend, the government will spend, and the man who wants to build a factory is going to spend. Should I calculate his own money in it? He can decide to put gold faucet in his house.
Somebody may decide to put leather chair in his house another man put wooden chair. The totality of what amounts to be spent in that place is sometimes, they say is in billions of dollars, and I say whatever amount.
What is critical is will the government create the right enabling environment? Would they have the necessary approval of the place? Do they have the where withal to execute it? And would they have the capital to be able to push it on its own free will? That answer is available. I believe that we are on the right course.
The duration of the project also is quite interesting; my job is to see that that project takes off and reaches what they call a breakeven point. At breakeven point even if I choose to be the most intelligent person in the world, I cannot stay.
I will give you an example, Abuja was put together by the Ajoseogun and co as engineers, have you ever heard of their names before? They were the master visionaries, they put it together.
Thereafter, Babangida moved Nigeria into Abuja. Abuja already existed; it only needs a good capital use of it. After that Babangida has left, what happened between Babangida’s time and Obasanjo’s time and what has happened after Obasanjo came to now? Believe you me it is big, because the whole of us used to go to Abuja for conference before. By 4 o' clock the last flight is coming back to Lagos.
If you don’t run to that airport by 4 o clocks, you are going to sleep on the corridor. There is no hotel then. But see what has happened, in 10, 20 years of democracy the place has exploded. The same thing will happen to Minna airport city.
Once they can reach a level of sustainability, attracting more industries, bringing in more people, attracting bigger names to come and join in the dream, it is going to be self regenerating. Therefore when will the project end? We think it is a city that live beyond it economic time and be able to become economically self sustaining.
What is also good about Minna? Remember the reason why the white men stopped in Minna is also the reason why Minna was even to produce three heads of state. Nnamdi Azikwe is not an Igbo man; he is actually more from Minna. Babangida is from there, Addul salam is from there.
Take Abeokuta out, the railway stopped in Abeokuta. So any place where you have the opportunity for transportation to come together you will have intellectual discuss, you will economic discuss and the people who come from those places because they are cosmopolitan, they are very broad in their outlook, they are people who may change the world.
Again I see Minna as a major success; I spent quality time there, the rest of our team spent quality time there. As you know one of us happily have to leave for England. She is back, the plan has been done everything is there and I think it is a sustainable model as an example for every state government to take and replicate. If it works in Minna why not anywhere else? It can work anywhere else.
What are your plans for air travelers in the country?
For Maevis itself and our experience within the industry, what we have done is very unique. There is a company we have which is called tagit. You will be surprise what we have also achieved.
When we were trying to put in the check-in counters at the airport in Lagos, we have problems of footprint where we could place it because that place is some time over crowded. We then had to start working across the divide then find out what kind of device could work as a kiosk.
So what we have decided to do is like a kiosk on its own. You go to England or any of this international airport, you walk up to the kiosk, you strike your passport, once you strike your passport, the word comes out of it, you put your details on it and then in a minute that kiosk prints out for you a boarding pass.
And you walk in and do a bag drop. It is in Heathrow, it is everywhere else. We have changed that now, rather than putting check-in kiosk here, we have chosen to put the kiosk into your hand. So rather than make it a common use self service kiosk, we have turned it into a personal use sales service kiosk.
So what you do now is you will buy your ticket, you will enter your name and your PINR , your ticket number, you will enter every details on it, you will send it and your boarding pass will come on this phone. Once your boarding pass comes on the phone, your 2D back will show up on the screen of the phone and that is what you will bring to the airport as your boarding pass. What we have basically done right now is we have changed this boarding pass and put it on the phone.
So you don’t have to have this anymore in the airport. What you will have is this one. In order to make it more convenient for you and even what the CBN governor has said about a cashless Lagos and a cashless society, we are now working with banks to ensure that the banks can now work with airlines such that in terms of wanting to pay for your ticket and getting your ticket happily sold to you at the kiosk.
Again, this then becomes a ticket purchase kiosk, just like you will go to a vending machine putting N100 and then it will give coca-cola. Again, if you load your money from your bank account you put it here, then your ticket will come here. Once your ticket comes here, then whatever. So this now becomes your travel assistance.
And that is what Maevis has just achieved. We are going through the final issues, once we finish by the grace of God, I believe that if there is anything to celebrate with the new minister, if there is anything to celebrate with you that is what we want to do. Celebrate this achievement and this success with the new minister.
What we believe will happen immediately therefore is this: we believe two things will happen. The first one is that the level of people who will have access to being able to buy air ticket will change. Because some of the things that used to make people not to travel by air is that they used to ask themselves how am I going to buy my ticket.
But if you know you can buy your ticket on your mobile phone, and you know that you can check-in on your mobile phone and you know that you can actually board on your mobile phone, the level of penetration of sales of those tickets will go up and more people will be able to come.
Ours is to help the industry generate what they call primary demand and to sustain the secondary demands also so that people who normally fly today, we simplify how they travel and people who don’t know how to fly we have simplify how they can do about buying their ticket.
Because you can imagine how it is now, if you are not very educated, at least you can be trying it in the corner of your room for at least 1 hour before you get it right. So when you get it right that is when you get it right.
It is like you making coffee for yourself or making tea or trying to make your own food. If the salt is too little or too much you don’t mind you will manage it. After a while you will know how to do it well.
And that is why we have challenged ourselves. So my prayer is that we will be able to get this launched very shortly with you as co-travelers. So it is better days for Nigeria, you will not only see those kiosk in the middle of the hall but each of your phone is actually going to be a mobile kiosk.
The only last thing we are doing now is with the banks in Nigeria and before the end of maybe in weeks it is all going to be solved.
