An airport authority spokesman confirmed to the BBC that just a few months after it was installed, thieves stole the lighting system for one of the runways at the busiest airport in Nigeria.
In order to “arrest the criminals [and] recover what’s missing,” Yakubu Funtua added, an investigation has now been started.
Uncertainty surrounds the exact moment the system was removed from Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
However, local media outlets claimed that the theft was committed by airport employees.
After years of restrictions on landing on that airport wing after dusk, the ground lights were installed in November, ending the restrictions.
Flight disruptions resulted from domestic carriers being forced to detour to the international section and taxi back about 4km (2.5 miles) to the correct terminal.
According to Mr. Funtua, the Nigerian Federal Airports Authority will “block all loopholes to prevent [a] future occurrence.”.
According to an unnamed source who spoke to Nigeria’s Punch newspaper, the thieves used the runway’s prolonged closure for maintenance as an opportunity to steal the lighting system.
A “syndicate” of airport employees and “accomplices from outside” were cited as the cause of a string of thefts, according to the source.
