Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Roberts, the daughter of a grocer, was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on 13th October, 1925. After graduating from Oxford University she worked as a research chemist. Later she studied law and eventually became a barrister.

On 13th December, 1951 she married Denis Thatcher, a successful businessman. A member of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher was elected to represent Finchley in October 1959. Two years later she joined the government of Harold Macmillan as joint parliamentary secretary for Pensions and National Insurance.

The Conservative Party was defeated in the 1964 General Election and Harold Wilson became the new prime minister. Edward Heath, the new leader of the Conservatives, appointed her as Opposition Spokesman on Pensions and National Insurance. She later held opposition posts on Housing (October 1965), Treasury (April 1966), Fuel and Power (October 1967), Transport (November, 1968) and Education (October, 1969).

Following the Conservative victory in the 1970 General Election, Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. In October 1970 she created great controversy by bringing an end to free school milk for children over seven and increasing school meal charges.

Edward Heath, the prime minister, came into conflict with the trade unions over his attempts to impose a prices and incomes policy. His attempts to legislate against unofficial strikes led to industrial disputes. In 1973 a miners' work-to-rule led to regular power cuts and the imposition of a three day week. Heath called a general election in 1974 on the issue of "who rules". He failed to get a majority and Harold Wilson and the Labour Party were returned to power.

In January 1975 Thatcher challenged Edward Heath for the leadership of the Conservative Party. On 4th February Thatcher defeated Heath by 130 votes to 119 and became the first woman leader of a major political party. Heath took the defeat badly and refused to serve in Thatcher's shadow cabinet.

James Callaghan replaced Harold Wilson as prime minister on 16th March 1976. Thatcher gradually adopted a more right-wing political programme placing considerable emphasis on the market economy. In January 1978 she was condemned for making a speech where she claimed that people feared being "swamped" by immigrants.

In 1978 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, controversially began imposing tight monetary controls. This included deep cuts in public spending on education and health. Critics claimed that this laid the foundations of what became known as monetarism. In 1978 these public spending cuts led to a wave of strikes (winter of discontent) and the Labour Party was easily defeated in the 1979 General Election.
Thatcher now became the first woman in Britain to become prime minister. In November 1979 Thatcher attended a summit meeting of the European Economic Community where she attempted to renegotiate Britain's contribution to the EEC budget.

Thatcher's government continued the monetarist policies introduced by Denis Healey. Inflation was reduced but unemployment doubled between 1979 and 1980. In 1981, Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced further public spending cuts. During this period public opinion polls suggested that Thatcher was the most unpopular prime minister in British history.

Thatcher's government also raised money by a programme of privatization. This included the denationalization of British Telecom, British Airways, Rolls Royce and British Steel.

On 2nd April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The following day the United Nations passed resolution 502 demanding that Argentina withdrew from the Falklands. On 5th April the British Navy left Portsmouth for the Falklands. Britain declared a 200 mile exclusion zone around the Falklands and on 2nd May 1982 the Argentinean battleship General Belgrano was sunk. Two days later HMS Sheffield was hit by an exocet missile.
British troops landed on the Falkland Islands at San Carlos on 21st May. Fighting continued until Port Stanley was captured and Argentina surrendered on 14th June 1982. Thatcher's personal popularity was greatly boosted by the successful outcome of the war and the Conservative Party won the 1983 General Election with a majority of 144.

Thatcher developed a close relationship with President Ronald Reagan. They both agreed to take a firm stance with the Soviet Union. This resulted in her being dubbed the Iron Lady. However, Thatcher was furious in November 1983 when the United States invaded the British dependency of Grenada without prior consultation.

Thatcher's government continued its policy of reducing the power of the trade unions. Sympathy strikes and the closed shop was banned. Union leaders had to ballot members on strike action and unions were responsible for the actions of its members. The government took a firm stand against industrial disputes and the miners' strike that began in 1984 lasted for 12 months without success.

At the funeral of Konstantin Chernenko on 13th March 1985, Thatcher met the new leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Thatcher's views on the Soviet Union changed after Gorbachev announced his new policy of Perestroika (Restructuring). This heralded a series of liberalizing economic, political and cultural reforms which had the aim of making the Soviet economy more efficient. Gorbachev also introduced policies with the intention of establishing a market economy by encouraging the private ownership of Soviet industry and agriculture.

At a meeting on 13th November 1985, Thatcher rejected the idea of entering the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. However, the following month she attended the Luxembourg European Council and during the meeting Thatcher agreed to sign the Single European Act.

In April 1986 Thatcher was widely criticized for giving permission for US bombers to take off from Britain to bomb Libya following a series of Libyan inspired terrorist attacks.

Thatcher was returned to power for a third time when she won the 1987 General Election with a majority of 102 seats. The following year she became Britain's longest serving prime minister for over a hundred years. However, her popularity was severely damaged when the Community Charge (Poll Tax) was introduced in Scotland in April 1989 (the rest of Britain was to follow a year later). The new tax was extremely unpopular and led to public demonstrations.

In November 1990 Thatcher was challenged as leader of the Conservative Party. She won the first round of the contest but the majority is not enough to prevent a second round. On 28th November, 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as prime minister and was replaced by John Major.

Thatcher left the House of Commons in March 1992. Soon afterwards she entered the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

The Great Indian Revolutionist.

WHEN GANDHI was born British rule had been established in India. The uprising of 1857, known as the Mutiny, had merely served to consolidate the British adventure into an empire. India had effectively passed under British tutelage, so effectively indeed, that instead of resenting alien rule the generation of educated Indians were eager to submit to the "Civilizing mission" of their foreign masters. Political subjection had been reinforced by intellectual and moral servility. It seemed that the British empire in India was safe for centuries.

When Gandhi died it was India, a free nation that mourned his loss. The disinherited had recovered their heritage and the "dumb millions" had found their voice. The disarmed had won a great battle and had in the process evolved a moral force such as to compel the attention, and to some degree, the admiration, of the world. The story of this miracle is also the story of Gandhi's life, for he, more than any other was the architect of this miracle. Ever since his grateful countrymen call him the Father of the Nation.

And yet it would be an exaggeration to say that Gandhi alone wrought this miracle. No single individual, however great and wonderful, can be the sole engineer of a historical process. A succession of remarkable predecessors and elder contemporaries had quarried and broken the stones which helped Gandhi to pave the way for India's independence. They had set in motion various trends in the intellectual, social and moral consciousness of the people which the genius Gandhi mobilized and directed in a grand march. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ramkrishna Paramhamsa and his great disciple, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Dadabhai Navroji, Badruddin Tyabji, Syed Ahmed Khan, Ranade, Gokhale, Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh and Rabindranath Tagore, to name only a few. Each one of them, had in his own, field created a consciousness of India's destiny and helped to generate a spirit of sacrifice which, in Gandhi's hands, became the instruments of a vast political-cum-moral upheaval. Had Gandhi been born hundred years earlier he could hardly have achieved what he did. Nevertheless, it is true, that, but for Gandhi, India's political destiny would have been vastly different and her moral stature vastly inferior.

But though Gandhi lived, suffered and died in India for Indians, it is not in relation to India's destiny alone that his life has significance. Future generations will not only remember him as a patriot, politician and nation-builder but much more. He was essentially a moral force, whose appeal is to the conscience of man and therefore universal. He was the servant and friend of man as man and not as belonging to this or that nation, religion or race. If he worked for Indians only, it was because he was born among them and because their humiliation and suffering supplied the necessary incentives to his moral sensibility. The lesson of his life therefore is for all to read. He founded no church and though he lived by faith he left behind no dogma for the faithful to quarrel over. He gave no attributes to God save Truth and prescribed no path for attaining it save honest and relentless search through means that injure no living thing. Who dare therefore claim Gandhi for his own except by claiming him for all?

Another lesson of his life which should be of universal interest is that he was not born a genius and did not exhibit in early life any extraordinary faculty that is not shared by the common run of men. He was no inspired bard like Rabindranath Tagore, he had no mystic visions like Ramakrishna Paramhansa, he was no child prodigy like Shankara or Vivekananda. He was just an ordinary child like most of us. If there was anything extraordinary about him as a child, it was his shyness, a handicap from which he suffered for a long time. No doubt, something very extraordinary must have been latent in his spirit which later developed into an iron will and combined with a moral sensibility made him what he became, but there was little evidence of it in his childhood. We may therefore derive courage and inspiration from the knowledge that if he made himself what he was, there is no visible reason why we should not be able to do the same.

His genius, so to speak, was an infinite capacity for taking pains in fulfillment of a restless moral urge. His life was one continuous striving, an unremitting sadhana, a relentless search for truth, not abstract or metaphysical truth, but such truth as can be realized in human relations. He climbed step by step, each step no bigger than a man's, till when we saw him at the height he seemed more than a man. "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe", wrote Einstein, "that such a one as this, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." If at the end he seemed like no other man, it is good to remember that when he began he was like any other man.

Such is the great lesson of his life. Fortunately, he has himself recorded for us the main incidents of his life till 1921 and described with scrupulous veracity the evolution of his moral and intellectual consciousness. Had he not done so, there would have been in India no dearth of devout chroniclers who would have invented divine portents at his birth and invested him with a halo from his childhood.

Russia's more corrupt than Nigeria.

Russian police uncovered 35,000 cases of corruption in the first nine months of this year, including alleged crimes by four deputy governors and five regional ministers.

Major bribe-taking increased by 17.5 percent from January to September compared with the same period of 2009, the Interior Ministry said in a statement distributed to reporters today. The average size of a bribe increased 1.5 times to around $1,400.

“We understand that you can’t overcome corruption in one year,” Alexander Nazarov, deputy head of the ministry’s economic crimes department, said at a briefing outside Moscow. “We are trying to minimize this problem so it doesn’t affect the development of the economy.”

Russia is the world’s most corrupt major economy, according to Berlin-based Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index released yesterday, sliding to 154th among 178 countries and placing it alongside Tajikistan and Kenya.

While President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to combat corruption when he was elected in 2008, Russians surveyed at the end of July ranked the inability of Vladimir Putin, now the prime minister, to deal with the issue during his 10 years in power as the administration’s biggest failure.

Police said on Oct. 21 they were seeking the former deputy head of government in the Moscow region and his wife, believed to be in the U.S., over the alleged embezzlement of $1 billion. The authorities, who have detained the region’s former deputy finance chief in the same case, said they managed to recover $820 million of the misappropriated assets.

Russians pay bribes totaling $300 billion a year, equivalent to almost a quarter of gross domestic product, according to Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti- Corruption Committee. Medvedev’s promises to reduce corruption won’t succeed unless law enforcement is improved, he said in an interview yesterday.

Another Consensus Option Coming•As Northern Leaders Insist Jonathan Drops Presidential Bid

Another form of consensus option is set to emerge on the political scene, following the understanding reached by some leading political figures to adopt what is called a “national consensus candidate.”
The bid is said to be a response to moves by the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) led by Alhaji Adamu Ciroma to ensure the emergence of a single aspirant among the presidential hopefuls who are members of the Peoples democratic Party (PDP) from the North.
Investigations by the Saturday Tribune revealed that the top political figures had compiled what looked like a record of performance of each of the notable aspirants within the PDP and other major parties and have come to the realisation of the need to burst the persistent ethnicisation of the electoral process, ahead of the 2011 election.
A source, in the know about the deal, said that the leaders preferred to keep their names out of print for now and that the political figures are already working out a committee that would be similar to the 17-member Consensus Committee raised by the Ciroma team.
“Worried by the threat to Nigeria’s stability and the need to overhaul the political setting as far as the 2011 race is concerned, a team of elders is working on the emergence of a national consensus candidate, as opposed to the sectional consensus candidate being worked on by some northern leaders,” a source said.
Other sources with knowledge of the development said that the team of leaders had met more than twice on the idea and that they have already put together what could stand as an assessment of each of the leading aspirants.
One of the conditions, according to the source, is that the candidate that would be adopted for 2011 may be asked to stand for election for only one term, while a younger candidate would be groomed to lead the consolidation of Nigeria’s development from 2015.
It was gathered that the prognosis of this team is swinging the direction of President Goodluck Jonathan, who will be presented the final report of the team.

The team is said to be of the view that if Jonathan agreed to quit office in 2015, he should be supported to lay the foundation for Nigeria’s true development, while younger elements like Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai would be groomed to take charge afterwards.

The group is already sending signals to Jonathan that if he will stay in office only between 2011 and 2015, he should be named a national consensus candidate who will set the tone for Nigeria’s socio-economic growth.
It was learnt that the aspirants, already analysed by the group; include former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari; former military ruler, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former National Security Adviser, General Aliyu Gusau; former anti-corruption chief, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and the governor of Kwara State, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
It was gathered that the team had already discovered that besides the power of incumbency, Jonathan appeals to a group of Nigerians who want to do away with liabilities of the past.
On Jonathan’s Bid
The northern political leaders on the platform of Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) are not about to give up fight on their demand for shift of presidential power to the northern region, and hence have started moves towards taking a court action on the issue.
The Forum led by Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Saturday Tribune can report, has started seeking legal advice on how to go by their resolve to seek judicial intervention on their demands, amid plans to drag the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to court
A top member of the Forum disclosed that once the elders got a peg of how to handle the litigation from suggestions by seasoned lawyers, including Senior Advoceates of Nigeria, they would not hesitate in proceeding to the court to challenge PDP on the issue of zoning.
The elders, it was learnt, are more interested in taking on the PDP on its constitution which they stressed recognised zoning, and the need to seek the court leave in compelling it to obey its constitution on the matter.
By implication, the North has now been leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that it gets back political power in 2011, following its conviction that any attempt by the PDP to make the incumbent president extend his government by 2011 meant that he would be doing so at the expense of the North.
More than three weeks ago, the NPLF, through Mallam Ciroma, had issued a week ultimatum through a press statement in which he called on PDP to prevail on President Goodluck Jonathan to withdraw from the 2011 presidential race, although Ciroma never specified any action his Forum would take at the expiration of the ultimatum
Already, some individuals had filed different applications in court on the issue of zoning, whereas the efforts being made by the northern leaders, according to some top shots, are meant to harmonise different views and positions on it and to approach the court as a formidable team.
The plan by the elders, as disclosed, is to mobilise most political juggernauts from the northern region to storm the court on the day the case would be presented to give an impression of seriousness on their preparedness to fight the issue of zoning to a logical conclusion.
The Forum on the other hand had initiated the process of picking a consensus representative among the four presidential aspirants who had collected nomination forms to run on the platform of PDP in 2011 presidential election.
Findings have, however, revealed that the elders who had commissioned a survey on the chances of each of the aspirants have been engaged in series of talks with each of them to accept any one of them who might have been selected by the 17 men saddled with the task of selecting the consensus candidate for the North.
As of the close of this week, the four aspirants, had restated their pledge to abide by any decision by the men on the issue of consensus candidacy for the North.

The Way Forward for Nigeria (II)
Pendulum By Dele momodu,Email:delemomodu@thisdayonline.com, 07.31.2010

When I wrote last week that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan should not contest the next general elections in Nigeria, a few of his die-hard friends protested against my innocent suggestion. It is a pity that we never learn from other people’s misfortune in our country. This time last year, no one knew President Jonathan would ever be allowed to take the mantle of power by the cult of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s supporters. Those guys were known at the time as the “cabal”. A few months down the road that word has suddenly, albeit temporarily, disappeared from the lexicon. However a new “cabal” is attempting to sneak itself into Aso Rock. Rumours are afoot, tongues are wagging and we are hearing from usually authoritative sources that Nigerians would soon be shocked out of their wits to learn of a new woman who’s more powerful than her erstwhile Excellency, Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, our audacious former First Lady. And this modern day Cleopatra is not even the wife of the President. Abuja is already agog with salacious tales of She, who must be obeyed, a quintessential character out of Henry Rider Haggard’s novel She: A History of Adventure.


Let’s leave SHE for now. The import of my narrative is that we seem to always waltz from one tragic persona to another. Once upon a time, the only name on every lip was Turai. It seemed no other woman existed. Even Dr Goodluck Jonathan did not possess the temerity to assume power when it was so obvious that power was his for the grabs. Some of us had to take to the streets without any prompting from him to help liberate him from the jaws of the lions of Abuja. The situation was so grave that even many of us feared for his life. There were reports that he was advised at a stage not to go near his office or accept any meal that was not personally cooked by his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, and his food was possibly sanctified by his pastors. But human memory is always very short. Nigerians have since moved on in our traditional habit of what Wole Soyinka called “collective amnesia”.


When God performs one miracle in the life of a man, the man often assumes that God has immediately retired, and no other man should benefit from God’s undeserved benevolence. He even believes that God deserves no compensation for being so merciful. What I expected of President Jonathan is to offer sacrifice to God as thanksgiving for elevating him from a man who was treated like nobody to somebody. The Bible is replete with tales of sacrifices. What Nigeria needs right now is a selfless leader who would put the nation above self. We are practically in a state of emergency, and it is obvious that Nigeria will haemorrhage to death if we allow the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as presently constituted to return to power for another four years after the 2011 elections. It is certain that most of the politicians at the Federal level have since convinced themselves that democracy is not a government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is now a Government of MY people, by MY people, for My People! Indeed the selfishness displayed makes one to believe they have gone even further to turn democracy into a Government of ME, by ME, for ME.


The major plank of this thesis is that President Jonathan would have robbed Nigerians of the luxury of a free and fair contest once he participates in a race he’s expected to supervise. There is no where I suggested he was not qualified to run. It is his legitimate right and that of every Nigerian to aspire to any office of his choice. In a normal setting, I would not have suggested such a seemingly undemocratic idea. But ours is a “peculiar mess”, apologies to Adegoke Adelabu. Elections in Nigeria in the past 50 years have never produced the desired results because of the propensity of a few upstarts to force themselves on the rest of us. And in a situation where it is impossible for the people to freely elect the leaders who can represent their aspirations, we are playing with a bloody revolution.


But our leaders don’t seem to realise how close we are to the precipice. We are about to be thrown down the cliff as a nation. By the time we take this kamikaze plunge, the whole of Africa would be in a mess. What makes it so tragic is the fact that we are about to commit mass suicide because of the rabid ambition of those who have never demonstrated any sense of competence and achievement in their private and public lives. Most of those who parade themselves as very important personalities in our climes are accidents of creation. Without their unrestricted access to public funds, no one would have known of their existence.


The bigger tragedy is the fact that most Nigerians have since resigned themselves to fate. They have become despondent and seem not to have a clue as to how to exorcise the demons in our midst. What is worse is the fact that those who seek a change are always tearing at each other’s throat when they should conserve their energy for the battle ahead. They find it hard to even recognise the few good and genuine human beings amongst us. The way forward for Nigeria is for everyone who truly cares about our country to join hands with others to rescue this otherwise great nation from the evil grip of a few plantation slave owners. This would require personal sacrifice at the highest level. For President Jonathan to win the next election he would have to sign a pact with the devils that lurk around our corridors of power. He would have to compromise a lot of things because the many warlords and garrison commanders that flock his political party will never consider the interests of the majority of our people who are suffering in the midst of plenty. He is already distracted from his duties by the cacophony of electioneering campaigns. He would waste our resources on himself and his band of chorus singers.


It is not how long a man stays in office that defines his greatness. It is how well he touches the people. I have seen the hurried but slapdash jobs being done for President Jonathan by those who must make money at all costs. I have seen the unprofessional billboards springing up around the Federal Secretariat Abuja, and I’m very saddened by the fact that the desperados have returned with a vengeance. They are holding our President hostage by persuading him to contest, when really he has nothing more to prove. I’m reading statements from the man who never stops to amaze me, Chief Francis Arthur Nzeribe. We have suddenly been teleported back to the eventful year of 1993. It must be true that history repeats itself. But what man would not learn from the lessons of history? What man but someone on the fringe of lunacy would do the same things repeatedly and expect different results.


What is more baffling is the fact that the gladiators have assumed that the long-suffering people of the South-South have no say in who represents them. In what smirks of unbridled arrogance, these power speculators are assuming that everyman from South-South is a member of PDP. This fact was pointed out to me recently by a senior leader of the South-South. It becomes a matter of concern and it is clear that this type of delusional attitude should be discouraged. The PDP believes it owns Nigeria. It believes abysmal non-performance is no cause for worry. If I was convinced that PDP has the capacity to discipline itself and move Nigeria to greatness, like many Nigerians I know all over the world, I would not worry too much about the participation of President Jonathan in next year’s election. However, it is important to note that a victory for Jonathan, in the present climate, would translate to automatic victories for the incompetent and irresponsible politicians who have brought our otherwise great nation to the disgraceful state we are today. There is no where a student is applauded for failure. And that is what our recent leaders have been – inept, lazy students, not graduates much less professors - struggling to understand the craft of governance but without the resources or the skill that could even enable them achieve a pass mark.


As for me and my house all he has to do in the next few months is to work hard and ensure he leaves a legacy of enduring democracy. He does not need to do anything more. Every country is in a continuum and other leaders will emerge in a truly democratic setting. They will take our country to the Promised Land and provide the infrastructure and governance required for this.


The point is the President cannot achieve the enthroning of true democracy if he joins in the fray. I do not suggest for a minute that he is not eligible or qualified to contest. However, if he does, he will naturally be in it to win and his reckless and unruly party will do everything to ensure this. The President, in order to fulfil his ambition, and possibly continue his much vaunted goodluck, will have to turn a blind eye, at the very least, to the serious infractions that the PDP zealots will inflict on democracy and the rule of law.
The only course is for the President to be an unbiased, impartial umpire. This appears to be his God sent errand in Nigeria. It is my hope that the President will seek God’s face, heed his voice and fulfil this mission.

PETROLEUM MATTERS

Lagos — The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), an amalgamation of over 16 existing laws covering the entire oil and gas sector in Nigeria, contains stringent guidelines that will protect the environment from oil spills and other forms of degradation, when passed into law by the National Assembly.
Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke stated this yesterday at a CNN programme monitored by THISDAY in Lagos.Speaking as a guest on CNN Business Quest anchored by Richard Quest, the minister refuted claims by environmental groups that there is more oil spills each year in the Niger Delta than in the Gulf of Mexico.
She however acknowledged that about nine million barrels of oil may have been spilled in the Niger Delta but pointed out that the spills dated back to 1938 when oil exploration and production started in the country.
Alison-Madueke, who attributed the spills to piracy and misapplication of the country's laws, assured that the country has put in place strict guidelines to address the situation.
"We have seen so many pirates. The militancy in the Niger Delta obviously created problems. There was piracy in terms of bunkering but there may have been some misapplication of laws over the years. This as we see now, has become a thing of the past because we are implementing extremely stringent laws, processes and procedures and to ensure that environmental degradation is addressed in time and is effectively remediated," she said.
The Minister assured that the PIB, which she said would be passed in the next four to five weeks, with the assistance of the members of the National Assembly will address not only the issue of environmental degradation but also ensure greater equity and participation of the Niger Delta communities in the oil and gas sector.
She noted that the inability of the country to refine enough petrol for domestic consumption was a huge problem, pointing out however that planned implementation of deregulation in the next 12 to 16 months would boost investment in new refineries and rehabilitation of the existing ones.

LAGOS TO GET NEW AIRPORT.

The Lekki Airport

When the only international airport in Lagos State; Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), was built, Ikeja was a suburb of Lagosand not the bustling commercial centre it is today. All the neighbourhoods and communities around the airport, like Oshodi, Isolo,Mafoluku have become heavily built up and highly populated. These lead to sporadic and disruptive traffic congestions. Despite the fact that the Lagos State government has made heroic efforts to make the Oshodi
access to the airport better by clearing the Kaiyero Market area,there is still traffic leading up to the airport itself, especially at peak hours in the morning and evening.

This scenario and several other factors like the number of passengers flying in and out of Lagos (5million per year) have made the need for another airport in Lagos State imperative, in anticipation of further economic growth in the state. The Lagos State Government established the Lagos Airport Development Company (LADC) solely for the purpose of managing the development of the proposed Lekki Airport with a primary
objective of complementing and supporting the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA).

Forward thinking as usual, the Governor through the state Ministry of Commerce and Industry is developing a masterplan for the new international airport to be built by the state in Lekki. The new airport is expected to cost $600million and will be built adjacent to the 16,500 hectare Lekki free trade zone to further catalyse the
ongoing development of the southeast region of the State.
The Lekki corridor is considered one of the most dynamic future growth areas in Nigeria. The new airport will provide much needed facilities for air passengers travelling to or via Lagos and also ease congestion at the MMIA.

The Lekki Airport is a complex project, which is why the state government engaged the best international consultants available to develop the Lekki Airport Master Plan. The study will be completed in four (4) separate stages and each stage requires approval from the Lagos State Government before proceeding to the next level.

The first stage comprises of the client’s brief; establishment of the project team; visit to the proposed site; air traffic analysis and critique for passengers and cargo; planning parameters and key facilities; yardstick measurements and airport schematics; development of airfield layout options and evaluation options and assessment.
During the second stage of the master plan, the team wrote about the passenger terminal sizing; concepts and assessment; preferred airfield and terminal options; architectural treatment options; conclusions and recommendations; development budget estimate; strategic programme options and procurement options.
For stage 3, the team will develop selected options; landside access –road & rail; prepare phasing strategy, amongst others.
The fourth and last stage will include the creation of a 3D model;presentation material; final master plan report and presentation to Governor Fashola and Lagos State Government team and the Master Plan study approval.

The Master Plan is currently at stage 3 is due to be completed by June this year. The Governor expects the airport to be operational by 2013.