The US President, Joe Biden, landed at Stansted Airport in London, United Kingdom, last Sunday night, en-route to Lithuania for the just-ended North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit.
The arrival ceremony, which was carried live on BBC television, saw only three US Embassy staff at the airport to welcome the man considered as the de-facto President of the World.
The airport environment was very quiet, as landings and taking off of other planes were very limited. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Biden just walked without any of his security details following him to a standby helicopter that airlifted him to the US Embassy in Central London.
Though Biden’s visit to the country was an official one, the UK Prime Minister was not at the airport to welcome him, neither was there any traditional drumming and dancing by people, as we usually do in Africa, and Ghana in particular.
Again, one of the biggest and busiest airports in the world, Heathrow, and London City Airports were not closed to air traffic because of the visit of the US President to the United Kingdom.
All these developments happened because London can boast of more than one international airport. Unfortunately, this can never happen in Accra, should Mr. Biden decide to visit the Centre of the Earth today.
The Kotoka International Airport (KIA), which is the only airport we have in Accra, would have been closed to air traffic during the arrival and departure of the US President. Those who have emergency business meetings to attend would have to wait until the Airforce One is landing or leaving the shores of the country.
The Chronicle is making all these references to hammer home the need to have another airport in Accra for the exclusive use of the Ghana Airforce. Currently, all our military jets take off and land on the runway of the KIA. As we indicated in this same column some years back, this poses a threat to our national security.
May God perish our thought, but should we, as a country, come under any external attack, especially from the air, it is the duty of the air force to move into the air to defend our dear nation. But the big question is, if for one reason or the other, the runaway at the KIA cannot be used by our air force planes, what are we going to do?
The Chronicle is aware that the Ghana Airforce have an airstrip at Afienya, near Tema. But as the name connotes, it is just an airstrip that is not meant for larger planes. We do not even know whether this airstrip has modern communication gadgets to facilitate easy landing and taking off of bigger military jets.
Because most of the facilities we have in this country are of colonial inheritance, they seem to have outlived their usefulness. No country in this modern time will build a civilian airport so close to military barracks. The military themselves wouldn’t have allowed their installations to be so close to the civilian facilities if we were to build a new military barracks today.
But, as we have already indicated, it is a colonial legacy and nothing can be done about it. However, since the military have vast lands at Bundase, which it currently uses as training grounds, the state of Ghana can build a modern airport there, with all the state of the art facilities. This will help them to cut all ties with KIA and give them the leverage to take off and land military aircrafts without any sweat.
As it happened in London, any US president visiting Ghana can even be directed to use the military airport and free KIA from the usual closure during such visits. We need to think ahead of time because our economy is growing and, therefore, attracting business tycoons who must always have unimpeded access to our airports to transact businesses.
