The Director General of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu has lamented how many of the state owned airports in Nigeria do not possess what it takes to meet regulatory requirements.
Following the misnomer, the more airports that are built by the state governors, the more regulatory burden they put on the agency.
According to, Captain Nuhu, some of these burdens include: financial stress on virtually all the agencies:the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and other allied agencies.
Speaking at the second annual National Transport Technology Conference and Exhibition with theme: “The Viability of State-Owned Airports: Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward,” held virtually on Tuesday, the SG NCAA remarked:“We have been stretched beyond our capacity.How does airport generate revenue when it operates once a week? Nuhu further stated that most of the airport projects are unviable and not thought through, hinting that the Federal Government is saddled with the responsibility of inheriting the aerodromes after they had been built.
“Most of the airports are unviable; built without traffic in mind and leaving the burden to the Federal Government to shoulder. Airports should be a catalyst for economic development.It has to be well thought through. It becomes a problem when an airport will not generate economic returns.”
The guest speaker and the immediate past Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Muda Yusuf lamented out put of the 32 airports in the country, only four of them are viable.
The viable aerodromes are: the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos which generates about 50 percent of the entire revenue, the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja, the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) and the Portharcourt International Airport.
Many of the airports he said are heavily subsidized by their state governments just to give an indication that they are working.
On the occasion, the president, National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Susan Akporiaye blamed lack of funding for the reason many of the state-owned airports are not thriving, stressing that no business will come and open a business when the airport only does one or two flights every day.
An aviation journalist who was one of the discussants at the Webinar, Wole Shadare alleged that many of the airport embarked upon by state governments are conduit for fleecing their different states, noting that out of the several airports projects by the states, only few are worth the huge amounts expended on them.
He expressed frustration in the fact that many of the state governors after building their airports subsequently transfer them to the FAAN which only put pressures on revenues from the only four viablr airports.
According to him,despite the obvious failure of some airport projects embarked upon by some state governments to take off effectively, more state governors are still desperate to build unviable aerodromes in their domains.
In this circumstance, he said the regulatory authorities are “forced” to spend revenue earned from four viable terminals in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano to subsidise operations in the 28 other airports managed by FAAN.
“From estimation, not less than N374 billion have so far been expended on such projects by the states, development, observers reckon as a mere conduit to siphon public funds than for economic interests.
Even as most of the aerodromes currently operate far below the requisite capacity, Edo State Government was recently granted approval by the Ministry of Aviation to site another airport in the northern part of the state, besides the one in Benin City, the state capital.
Stakeholders are worried that the rate at which state governments were going about it, virtually all the states in Nigeria would have at least an aerodrome in the next five years. While very few of them are viable, many others have been described as ‘white elephant projects.”
Other speakers included; the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace, Dr. Emmanuel Meribole, Managing Director, Anambra international Airport, Mr. Marin Nwafor, General Secretary, Aviation Round Table, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo.
Others are President of NANTA, Mrs. Susan Akporiaye, Commissioner for Aviation Cross RiversState, Capt. Eno Inah (Rtd) and Commissioner for Transport, Anambra State, Mrs. Patricia Igwebuike.