By David Ejiohuo.
A cross section of Nigerians and especially, the people of Niger Delta, have warmly endorsed the renaming of the Port Harcourt International Airport to Chief Obafemi Awolowo International Airport, Omagwa, Port Harcourt.
The immediate past federal administration led by President Mohammadu Buhari had swiftly before it handed over power renamed several airports across the country with the names of prominent Nigerians both living and dead.
One of them was the Port Harcourt International Airport Omagwa which was renamed Chief Obafemi Awolowo International Airport, Omagwa, Port Harcourt.
The sudden change in the nomenclature of the airport was, however, greeted with mixed reactions from people from all works of life, especially, the people of the Niger Delta, who felt that they were short-changed by the FG.
For this, our Correspondent at the international airport conducted interviews and came up with the people’s verdict.
Most people who spoke on the issue welcomed the renaming after a Nigerian sage and hero, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
The late statesman, they noted, was an iconic and foremost nationalist, an educationist, and a man who they said left many landmarks in terms of development in Nigeria.
One of our respondents, Professor Jasper Jumbo, a man believed to be one of the founding fathers of Rivers State, said Chief Obafemi Awolowo deserved to be named after any institution or airport in the country to immortalise his name.
” Yes, it is the prerogative of the FG to rename the airport or any other airports across the country”.
He, however, called for equity from the Federal Government on its quest to immortalise Nigerian hero both dead and alife .
Another respondent, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, a former member of the House of Representatives and former Commissioner for Information in the state, described the FG’s move as a welcome development and an honour made in good fate.
Chief Awolowo, he remarked, was a nationalist who introduced free education in the then Western Nigeria and mass literacy.
“He brought the first television and the first railway into this country, the Publisher of the Port Harcourt Telegraph,” added.
Chief Anthony Akarolo, the Amangada 1 of Rebisi and the paramount ruler of Elekohia Kingdom in Port Harcourt, also welcomed the idea as a good development.
According to Eze Amangada, Chief Awolowo deserves to be immortalised in the country because of his great contributions to the development of Nigeria.
The Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Jamaica, Ambassador Moureen Tamuno, was equally elated when she said that it was an honour well deserved.
Earlier, a former governor of Rivers State, Sir Celestin Omehia, had remarked that it was the right and prerogative of the Federal Government to name and rename airports in the country to whosoever it deemed fit.
The airports, he noted, belong to the Federal Government and that the owner has the right to rename it irrespective of wherever it is located in the country.
Nigeria, he further noted, was not running a regional system of government but a federal system, and thus has the right to do so.
Sir Omehia advised the people of Niger Delta people to learn to build their sons and daughters to be reckoned with in future and not to destroy them.
