Officials of Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), and other aviation agencies have met in Lagos on a partnership with Nigeria to enhance airspace coordination and safety.
ASECNA was led by its Director General, Amadou Guitteye, and NAMA by its Managing Director, Ibrahim Abdulsalam.
ASECNA, an Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), was established in 1959 with 18 members – Chad, Gabon, Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Africa, the Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Madagascar.
Its headquarters is in Dakar, Senegal.
Guitteye explained that the meeting was pursuant to the Cotonou declaration of 2010 which harped on “the need for African ANSPs to move to a single African sky through close collaboration, coordination and partnership that would bring about a standardised, harmonised, seamless and interoperable CNS/ATM systems within intra and adjacent FIRs.”
He said with the impending sectorisation of Accra FIR, which hitherto included Benin and Togo airspaces – soon to be taken over by ASECNA – there is need to review letters of procedures with Nigeria, the closest neighbour to ASECNA in the region.
Guitteye sought collaboration in cross border search and rescue and training of manpower.
Abdulsalam stressed that an inter-FIR collaboration with ASECNA is a welcome development and would be of mutual benefit to both parties.
“We look forward to a very fruitful collaboration and cooperation between Nigeria and ASECNA countries,’’ he added.
The delegation visited the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Aviation, Mohammed Abbas, and inspected facilities at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Facilities inspected included the Control Tower, Equipment Room, VSAT Earth Station, Instrument Landing Systems, Localisers as well as the TRACON centre.
After the tour, Guitteye described the facilities as excellent.
“We are very impressed about what we have seen today. From the navigational aids to the TRACON centre, we learnt a lot and it has given us more confidence in the ability of NAMA to guarantee the safety of air navigation in the region.
“We also discovered from our interaction that Nigeria has very capable technical manpower managing these infrastructure and we shall continue to exchange ideas and technologies, all targeted at enhancing air safety on the continent of Africa,’’ he said.