The wife of the President, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu has commissioned the 3.1 km runway of the Chuba Okadigbo International Cargo Airport Onueke, Ebonyi State.
Speaking at the event, Mrs Tinubu commended Governor Francis Nwifuru for the initiative saying, “Your testimonials have really gone ahead of you, and I’m really glad to be in Ebonyi State”
“We’re glad the other one was a very crucial event, which you know, but I’m glad we planned this, like I was telling Mr President, I said we’ve already planned this, I was the one who gave you the date, but still I have to be at the event for today”
“But I’m really glad we came, and I see how beautiful Nigeria is, you know we don’t promote ourselves, what I saw today, I was even sharing that we went to Burundi, I thought they did well”
The First Lady added that the runway was better than what she anticipated and thanked God for the good work of Governor Francis Nwifuru.
“So, we want to thank God for the good work you’ve been doing, and let me recognize Her Excellency, the wife of the Vice President, and also the former Senate President, Senator Pius Anyim.”
She described the wife of the Governor as a big mobilizer, saying, “It gladdens my heart when we see people that are young, you know they have their hands on their work and they are doing great jobs”.
“It is with this honour that I commission this runway to the glory of God, and we pray that, and the benefit of mankind, but we pray that this runway planes will land here safely”
Earlier in an address, Governor Francis Nwifuru, said the runway was initially built on concrete.
“We came in, Your Excellency, on that fateful 29th day of May, 2023, and as of then, we used concrete to build this runway, we didn’t know, as a state, that concrete is not accepted to be used to build runway”
“When we came in, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) closed the airport, that this place is not a place that a plane can land, and we decided to start building the runway again.
Nwifuru reiterated that based on the support of President Bola Tinubu, the runway was completed and is one of the best runways in this country.
The commissioning of the runway was witnessed by the wife of the Vice President Mrs Shettima, wives of Governors across the country, former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim and members of the State Executive Council among others.
