Many voters and candidates alike in the eastern and northern parts of the country were yesterday stranded as airlines cancelled flights over poor visibility occasioned by an intensive harmattan haze.The passengers who wanted to return to Lagos and Abuja after the postponement of the presidential election did not find the joy of air travel yesterday as multiple flights to Asaba, Benin, Uyo, Enugu, Calabar, among others, were cancelled.
The Guardian learnt that a lot of the stranded air passengers resorted to travel by road after hours of waiting at the airports. Air Peace, for instance, cancelled eight flights into Asaba and Benin airports. The Spokesperson of the airlines, Chris Iwarah, said the harmattan haze was intense with attendant poor visibility for aircraft operations. He explained that instead of visibility range of at least 5000ft to touchdown, Benin had 2000 and Asaba 1000, “which is very far from what we need to operate.”
Besides, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) yesterday denied that flight activities were disrupted at some airports prior to Saturday which affected the distribution of election materials across some states. The agency said contrary to claims in some quarters, it never witnessed the disruption of flight, shut the airspace or planned to restrict air movement before, during and after the scheduled presidential and National Assembly elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in the wake of the postponement of the February 16 elections, made claims on logistics and poor distribution of election materials. It alleged that bad weather at some airports prevented airplanes that were conveying election materials from making safe landing, hence, some had to divert to alternative aerodromes. But the General Manager, Public Affairs Department of NAMA, Khalid Emele, said there were no disruptions in the provision of air traffic services on Thursday and Friday when the distributions of polls materials were claimed to have been made. Read more