Yobe State governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, said the N11.3 billion Cargo Airport currently under construction in the state will be put to use latest January 2019.
Gaidam gave the assurance during an inspection visit to the project site yesterday at Kallalawa village, 25 kilometres from the state capital, Damaturu.
Gaidam described the airport as one of his legacy projects that would do much good to the state.
“For those of you who were around when we promised to construct an airport during our 2011 campaign, the preliminary arrangements commenced immediately after being elected, but due to the insurgency, the implementation became extremely difficult until this time. Our hope is for the airport to be ready so that the President would land when he comes for campaign for 2019 general election,” he said.
While being taken round the project by his Commissioner of Works and Transport, Hon. Lawan Shettima Ali, Gaidam expressed satisfaction with work done so far but asked the contractor to engage more manpower and equipment for the project to be completed on time.
Speaking also, the supervisory commissioner said the contract was awarded in September 2017 with 30 percent mobilization fee. He said the contractor had so far achieved 20% construction of the airport access road, 50% of the runway, 16% of the patrol road, 88 percent of graded area and 6% for geographical investigations.
