"...at one time..."
What time would that have been, if you please? I seem to remember a span of about 23 years when it was sheer chaos and from what I read here it doesn't seem to have improved.
Just for one, do you still have to pass all your details 10 minutes before you hit the Kano FIR because Nigerian ATC doesn't have a clue that you are coming, and that after the appearance of those big white SATCOM dishes?
Can you walk into the FIC at Murtala Muhammed Airport and get a full weather briefing the way you can just up the road in the (much poorer) neighbour countries?
Call me bitter and twisted if you like but I just burst into hollow laughter when I read these little praise songs about total radar coverage, the new and improved Zaria, the way the regulators now have everything under, uh, regulation.... As long as the oil flows I just don't see much changing in Nigeria. I bet Friday afternoon into early evening at LAG still looks like a swarm of wasps around a jam jar, pretty much the state of play back in 1981 when I first saw the place. Well, okay, it was better then because there was less traffic but....
Did they ever replace the surface lighting at DNMM that had been stolen back in the early Eighties? Remember how every morning would see a couple of fresh holes and a little pile of nuts and lock washers? Ah yes, the good old days....
Come on guys, wake up and smell the coffee. If there's a couple of million in it to attract the "ten-percenters" then you will get your big projects and the accompanying big palaver but real change?
Now I can just sit back and wait for someone posting from London to tell me just how wrong I am. That shouldn't take very long.