The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has taken acquisition and began to deploy new AI powered security machines that will be replacing customs tables erected at the entrance of the Murtala Muhammed International International Airport (MMIA) terminal.

Passengers and stakeholders have expressed concerns that the table where customs officials conduct secondary checks after baggage have been screened by scanning machines only constitutes delays and amounts to unnecessary multiple checks at the airport.

Some also argue that the table is often used by some customs officials to harass and exploit passengers during the secondary checks.

The complaints and feedbacks from passengers may have yielded some results as FAAN have deployed tech machines which is being installed at screening points at the Lagos International Airport that would totally eliminate the manual search.

The Orion 927DX machines bought by FAAN has the capacity to exhibit images in the Classic 4-colour and the new proprietary Spectrum 4-color (SP4) option providing superior image, allowing improved security by quick and accurate identification of threats and increase in throughput.

The machines are also designed to detect a wide range of explosives and narcotics respectively in real time during the scanning process by marking a potential threat on the X-ray image.

Speaking during an airport tour at the weekend, Afegbai Albert Igbafe, Director Aviation Security Services, (DASS)  said by the time FAAN finish installing all the screening machines and the monitors, each security agent would have their own monitors and the tables will be out away.

“The tables you see will be a thing of the history, you will not see any table here. There will be no physical contact, because what we are also doing is that when we fix those monitors and the machines dictate unaccepted objects, the concerned officials will take the passenger and his or her baggage to designated areas for physical checks.

“The designated areas will also have CCTV cameras. This is to ensure the passengers are not being exploited. When the machines dictate something, the Aviation Security (AVSEC) call the relevant agencies such as National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Customs, quarantine, amongst others to follow up,” Igbafe explained.

He further explained that FAAN is now B extending the machines to include six different monitors for the six agencies present at the airport, so that officials can sit and monitor the bags on their screens.

“Custom will have their screen. The quarantine will have their screen and others will also have theirs.So, everybody will sit down while luggage go through the machines,” the aviation security director said.

Speaking on AVSEC’s collaboration with with the NDLEA in terms of drug investigation, he said, “Before we bought the new machines, our machines were not detecting some drugs but with the new machines, we will start to train some of the security agencies, like the NDLEA, the DSS, the immigration and the quarantine.

Also speaking during the tour, Chima Oge, Head Of Department, ICT at MMIA, Lagos said the new Orion 927DX machine has  features that helps with identification of organic materials accurately and quickly either in range mode which highlights the areas based on range selected by the operator, and/or in Interactive mode which provides the operator the option to display the areas based on the value of the pixel.