December 04, (THEWILL) – The President of the National Air Traffic Communicators Association of Nigeria (NACAN), Rabiu Mohammed Sani, has decried the shortage of manpower in the comms department of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).
Speaking on the sideline at the 11th Annual General Meeting of NACAN in Abuja, Sani lamented that the department was short-staffed, especially Lagos and Port Harcourt, saying that about 50 more personnel were needed to man different airports across the country.
According to Sani, the situation is more worrisome during Hajj operations, which has posed challenges in some airports during those periods.
“We have to engage more staff, as we speak now, we don’t have staff in Dutse, Jalingo, Bauchi, Birnin Kebbi. Which is actually very bad. Any time we are having Hajj operations, we experience a lot of challenges.”
Sani lamented that a situation where necessary facilities were not available was not good for the system adding that the use of social media for information dissemination was unacceptable as the message ought to be kept with integrity.
On the welfare of members, Sani explained that “NACAN has secured the employment of nine trained Comms officers after 13 years of their training at Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, of which were in NAMA payroll.”
He noted that the past three years as the president of NACAN have been a transformative period for the association, saying that the narratives have been changed by working together.
Sani enumerated some of his achievements in the past three years, including clearing inherited outstanding payments, and backlog of branch dues from December 2021 to December 2024, across all 26 branches nationwide, which has been fully paid.
He remarked that all wrongly deducted payments from the past 11 years were rectified, benefiting individuals while Duty Travel Allowances (DTA) for all representatives were paid.
Sani, however, requested from the management of NAMA that the approval of N50,000 for English proficiency to ATC should also be extended to Aero-Comms personnel.
The NACAN President noted that the Aero-Comms department in NCAT, Zaria, issued the same English proficiency certificate others were benefiting from despite possession of the same by its members.
Anthony Awunor, is a business correspondent who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics (UNILAG). He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria Kaduna State. He lives in Lagos.
