Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, has reassured travelers that measures will be taken to eradicate touting both within and outside Nigeria’s international airports.
Keyamo emphasized the presence of two distinct categories of touts at these airports, causing significant embarrassment to the country in the eyes of visitors.
He clarified that touts are operating within the airport premises and others outside. The former, he stressed, pose a greater threat and necessitate the involvement of armed security personnel for their removal. The latter, he lamented, contribute to the nation’s embarrassment by disregarding their uniforms and engaging in unauthorized activities.
During the Ministerial Sectoral Press Briefings, Keyamo candidly addressed the issue: “There are two types of touts at the airports. The official touts and non-official touts. That’s the truth.”
“You meet touts outside and inside the airport you meet touts in uniforms, who deep hands into bags, and ask for money.
“In many cases, we’ve seen disgraceful videos on social media. Although this is not under us, it’s just our environment but we’ve spoken to the Interior and the National Security Adviser and we’re working jointly on that.
“We may have to present a joint memo very soon to try and reduce the human contact at the airports. All of those agencies should be behind glass doors somewhere.
“They cannot all be seen embarrassing our country. We’re addressing that problem and very soon we’re going to come up with a holistic solution.
“For the touts outside, we are asking for backup because FAAN, they don’t carry arms. Some of these boys [touts outside] are armed.
“So we’re trying to call for help from normal security agencies to see how they can cooperate with us to purge them out of the airports.”
