Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos
Security in airports globally seems to be offering little answers
to posers of terrorism. Insider threat accounts for major loopholes in
standard security practices but still largely overlooked even in
Nigeria. WOLE OYEBADE reports
Airport security and safety of air travelers are more of a huge challenge to authorities in contemporary times.
Air travel, popularly dubbed as the safest means of transportation,
has become one of the soft targets of terrorist organisations. The fear
of terrorism and where the cookie next crumbles are daily concern for
airport handlers around the world.
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Yet, ensuring adequate security measures could be a tall order given
the nature of airport operations. Where security appears lax to enable
ease of access that air travel demands, safety is easily compromised and
a no-no by international standard. But where too rigid and perceived
too unfriendly by travelers, security is more of a hindrance than help.
Since September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States, airport security has taken further notches beyond normal baggage checks, metal screenings of individual persons, and rules against any object that could be used as a weapon.
Experts in the know would say security is largely intelligence
gathering and rightly so. Both human and technological devices have been
deployed in modern airports around the world to frisk the threats
without much discomfort to ‘assets’. But the result still leaves much to
be desired till date.
Atatürk airport in Turkey was the best-secured transport hub with the
lowest terrorists’ risk in Europe. The scored card was credible until
three gunmen shattered its peace last month, killing 44 persons.
The terror attack has prompted experts to reexamine the loopholes,
one of which is the fear of sabotage from airport staffers with access
to restricted areas.
Airport security expert, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), explained
that security in any airport is in six layers. The first three, which
comprises of checkpoint screening, access control and luggage screening,
are all the duty of the airport authorities. The other three are about
intelligence, with one mainly the responsibility of the regulatory
authority and other two, for the airlines operators.
Ojikutu said while there is no doubt that intelligence remains the
first line of defence, more attention has to be paid to access control,
luggage screening and persons that come near the critical areas in the
airport.
He said: “Beyond attention on passengers and their luggage, the
airport staffers must also be brought under close scrutiny to quell
insider threats.”
It would be recalled that at least two airport staff in the French
capital are under scrutiny as investigators piece together what caused
an EgyptAir jetliner to crash after taking off from Paris’ Charles de
Gaulle airport in May this year.
Sylvain Prevost, who trains airport personnel at the French airport,
said: “The infinitely perfect does not exist,” not even among the “back
of the airport employees”.
In another instance, investigation of the explosions at Brussels
International Airport in March found that no fewer than 50 employees
were influenced by extremism, and in previous cases, airport staff
members were found to have helped terrorists pass security checks.
An average airport requires a huge size of workforce, operating in
different sections. Among them are the ramp agents, customer service
agents, flight dispatchers, light crews; air traffic controllers;
aeronautical station operators; maintenance technicians; personnel of
aircraft design and manufacturing organisations; cabin crews; flight
dispatchers, apron personnel and ground handling personnel. In some
airports around the world, the staffers are as much as 80,000 in number.
By international standards, access is restricted to critical areas,
especially the airside, that is, all areas accessible to aircraft,
including runways, taxiways and ramps. However, the level of
implementing these standards differs a lot.
Not until recently, the vast majority of airport employees in the United States, with direct access to the tarmac and airplanes, do not go through any daily security screening.
“One of the greatest vulnerabilities for these airports and probably
any other major airport like Miami International Airport (MIA) is the
insider threat,” Lauren Stover, the airport’s security director had told
the CNN.
In Nigeria, the rate of compliance to security rules, particularly
daily security clearance differs greatly. From findings, only the four
prominent airports offer higher guarantee.
However, the current regime of poor remuneration and welfare of
airlines’ workers is a source of concern. Luggage handler for one of the
airlines operating at the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) of the
Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, told The Guardian that his
employer has not paid salary in the last three months.
Last Wednesday, pilots and engineers of a helicopter operations
service company embarked on one-day warning strike in protest of unpaid
salaries and wage disparities for expatriates and Nigerians. Fact is
that most of the airlines are in dire straits; heavily indebted to
banks, with heightened fears to quit operations.
Opinion of stakeholders is that the economic situation poses a
potential risk for safety of all. An industry watcher said: “Member of a
groundcrew that has not been paid for several months and has family to
feed, may consider the option of making brisk business with contraband
item that he or she may not even know it’s content. Imagine such person
coming into contact with terrorist group. It is a dangerous times we are
living in,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Notwithstanding, Ojikutu reiterated that it was high time airport handlers had paid closer attention to staffers.
“Who is watching over them? How are you recruiting people that work
where the aircrafts are packed and where the luggage are and so on? Some
of the things that are happening now are influenced by sabotage,”
Ojikutu said.
Apparently in agreement, Li Wei, an expert on anti-terrorism studies
at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said
that eliminating human factors is the priority of all counterterrorism
measures.
“If people (working in the industry) are not reliable, all other preventive measures will be useless,” Li said.
At the MMA2 in Lagos — where security is a joint agreement between
the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the managing
company, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited — the authorities,
however, assured that safety remains a priority with little or no window
for compromise.
Aderemi Ladigbolu of the Corporate Communications Department,
Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, reiterated that restricting
access to critical areas is a global standard and followed to the
letters in their terminal.
Ladigbolu explained that the pass carried by all staffers is
denominated by colour codes and they indicate the limit of a worker’s
access, adding that the security officials understand the implications
of the colours.
“The fact that you have access to a particular area does not mean
that your pass is automatic. There are certain areas of the terminal
that no matter who you are, you have to be screened before you have
access. Compliance in our case is strict and we work by processes such
that there are no gaps.”
Continuing, he said: “We cooperate with security officials totally.
FAAN and the police conduct background check prior to issuing us access
cards. Again, our systems here are automated; you cannot even beat the
system. That is why ours is foolproof. Insider threat is not an issue
with us and even if it is, because we don’t know what is on the mind of
everyone, our system is up to date to take care of it,” he said.
For the airports at large, the Managing Director of the Federal
Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Saleh Dunoma, also assured that
the agency, saddled with security, profiles workers who have access to
the sensitive areas of the airport.
Dunoma said that every six months the on-duty cards (ODC) is renewed and before the renewal the agency carries out background checks of its personnel and that of other workers to ensure that every person with the card passes security screening.
“There are a lot of efforts that have been put in by various security
agencies and the federal government to make sure that our airports are
secured. We have never disputed the possibility of insider threat. As
people working for you, you cannot rule out the issue, but what we do in
order to forestall that is that anybody that comes and wants to access
any part of the airports, whether staff, personnel from government
agencies or workers of our concessionaires, must go through some checks
before we access them on-duty cards.
“We subject them to background checks, especially if they are staff.
This is key and once we found you wanting we deny you the access and we
send message to your agency and we do this periodically. Once we give
you ODC and you want to renew it after six months, we carry out another
background check.
Through this we are able to check insider threat. And
if we get a report of any questionable character at the airport, we make
sure we get the person out,” he said.
