Africa

Major Airports in Nigeria
Lagos (lower left), Abuja (center) and Kaduna (upper right)

There was a story in the WSJ this morning about problems with airports in Nigeria that quoted one official who said the security problem was not as bad as some people claimed, after all "there haven't been any kidnappings since November",  which I thought was so reassuring I would post it as my quote for the day.

But now when I get around to looking it up on the net (because the WSJ's new stuff is hidden behind a paywall), I find that a couple of Germans were kidnapped there TODAY.

So they are planning on closing the airport in Abuja in order to make some repairs, which kind of makes me wonder just how old it is and what I find is just short of miraculous. It has been there forever, or at least that is the conclusion I draw since nowhere could I find any claims as to when or who built it.

Update: Wikipedia Reference Desk delivers some answers:

• Per the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria website: Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport (Abuja) "was built in the early 2000 and opened in 2002" [18] and Kaduna Airport "was officially commissioned in 1982 under the management of the Nigerian Airports Authority (NAA)" [19] 184.147.120.176 (talk) 22:08, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Our Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria article mentions that Kaduna was one of the sites chosen for airfields by the British Air Ministry "in the early 1930s", although this is presumably Old Kaduna Airport. Alansplodge (talk) 01:59, 26 February 2017 (UTC)