A day with Arik Air to Borno IDP camp

I visited Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State Tuesday this week. I was part of a media team that was invited to cover the resumption of Arik’s flights to the city, more than one year after the carrier withdrew services to the airport.

Arik’s withdrawal from Maiduguri was not unconnected with unrest in the North East, especially Borno State where the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents held sway before the military degraded them (Boko Haram) and normalcy returned to the area.

Surreal is one way of describing the overall feeling you get when you look deep into the faces and soul of Maiduguri.

The city which witnessed the tipping point in the history of the insurgency and then went through six years of agony is bravely attempting to come back to life.

The war was stretched beyond imaginable limits with more than one and a half million internally displaced people in homes and camps.

Soldiers and other security personnel lived on constant alert, neighbours closely scrutinized each other, and the global community attempted to find entry points into one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in recent human history.

Until recently, only Azman and Med-View braved the odds to operate to the once crisis ridden city. Peace has however returned to Borno State with many people going about their lives.

In some places, there are presence of security operatives at strategic locations to protect lives and property.

The Arik flight operated with B737-700 had departed the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos around 8pm and arrived in Maiduguri via Abuja airport about 10.30am.

The airline had in December 2013 suspended flights to the state. The flights to Maiduguri International Airport will operate thrice weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays via Abuja while passengers from other Arik Air network can connect to Abuja for their onward journey to Maiduguri, it said.

Vice- President, Northern Operations of Arik Air, Mr. Hamza Bukar said the airline resumed flights to Bornu to reclaim its leadership position.

He said the airline 1 the relief items to the IDPs as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility. 

He commended the state and federal governments for the efforts made in restoring peace to the once troubled state.

Coordinator of the IDP camp, Ali Idi enjoined other individuals and corporate bodies to emulate the good gesture by Arik.

The Airport Manager, Alhaji Mohammed Saidu said no airport in the country is as safe as Maiduguri and assured airlines of safe and secure operations.

“There is no safer airport than Maiduguri International Airport because we are conscious of what is happening in Maiduguri and Nigeria in general and we have not relented in our efforts,” he said.

After the usual airport formalities to welcome back to a city it operated to severally before it temporarily stopped operations, the airline as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CRS), considered it necessary to visit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Maiduguri

It donated bags of rice, sanitary pads, clothes, among others worth millions of naira to the victims of Boko Haram insurgency. 

The inmates trooped out in large numbers to receive relief materials donated by the airline. A visit to the camp turned out to be more revealing.