The warning from the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Olubunmi Kuku, to state governments against the indiscriminate construction of airports cannot be taken lightly.
It is one of the most candid assessments yet of a dangerous trend in which governors try to outdo each other in sinking billions of naira into airport projects driven more by political prestige than by economic logic.
Her verdict was unequivocal that airport projects should not be conceived as status symbols but as investments justified by demand, commerce and sustainability.
Nigeria recorded about 17.94 million passenger movements in 2025, representing a 5.9 per cent growth over the previous year, despite a population of about 220 million. In other words, less than 10 per cent of Nigerians travel by air.
Against this backdrop, Kuku rightly asked the questions many governors refuse to answer: Is the airport commercially viable? What economic activities will generate passenger and cargo traffic? If those questions cannot be convincingly answered, such projects are expensive monuments to misplaced priorities.
Nigeria has about 36 airports and airstrips, yet only four are commercially viable. Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano account for the overwhelming majority of passenger traffic.
The Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu and Chuba Okadigbo International Airport in Ebonyi are also rated “international.”
Indeed, more than 90 per cent of domestic aviation activities are concentrated in a handful of airports, leaving many others grossly underutilised. Yet taxpayers continue to shoulder the enormous cost of maintaining them.
Running an airport is far more expensive than erecting an impressive terminal building. It requires long runways built to international specifications, sophisticated navigational equipment, constant maintenance, aviation security personnel, refuelling facilities, fire trucks, rescue services, airfield lighting, regulatory compliance and continuous capital expenditure.
These costs remain constant whether 10 passengers or 100,000 passengers pass through the airport.
Yet governors continue to announce new airport projects as though airports are trophies to be displayed during election campaigns.
This obsession with aviation infrastructure (and flyovers) has become another manifestation of Nigeria’s culture of white elephants that consume public resources while yielding little economic return.
Nothing illustrates this folly better than the proposal for a second international airport in the Ndikelionwu area (Orumba North LGA) of Anambra State as part of an “Aerotropolis” industrial city master plan.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo came into office with a reputation as a distinguished economist and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Many Nigerians expected him to bring rigorous economic thinking to governance. That is why the proposed second airport in one of Nigeria’s smallest states is particularly baffling.
Anambra already has the Chinua Achebe International Cargo Airport at Umueri. Even before that N6 billion airport has fully matured into a thriving commercial hub, and another N10 billion airport is being proposed. The logic does not add up.
The Asaba Airport in Delta State is just 47km away by road. The Umueri facility is also close to Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu (110km) and Sam Mbakwe Airport in Owerri (100km). This density creates a needless overlap as these airports compete for the same pool of passengers in the South-East and adjoining areas within a 150km radius.
For comparison, Ibadan city centre to Lagos airport is about 130km, yet travellers from Ibadan routinely use Lagos despite the distance.
Airlines are themselves struggling with high operating costs, expensive aviation fuel, foreign exchange constraints and limited aircraft fleets. Splitting an already thin passenger market among even more airports is hardly a recipe for commercial success.
An airport should emerge because economic activities demand one, not because every governor desires one within his political constituency.
Unfortunately, airports have increasingly become instruments of political vanity. One administration builds one to leave a legacy; another proposes another in a different senatorial district to satisfy political balancing or local sentiment. Public resources are thus sacrificed on the altar of ego.
This is particularly indefensible at a time when 141 million Nigerians are classified as multidimensionally poor, lacking access to quality healthcare, decent schools, potable water, functional roads, affordable housing and reliable electricity.
Across many states, primary healthcare centres have become empty shells, public schools remain overcrowded and poorly equipped, rural roads are impassable and social protection programmes barely exist.
Billions allocated to commercially doubtful airports could instead renovate hundreds of schools, equip hospitals, expand water schemes, modernise agricultural value chains or construct roads that benefit millions rather than a privileged minority that can afford air travel.
The irony is that many states today enjoy substantially higher revenues following the removal of fuel subsidies and exchange-rate reforms undertaken by President Bola Tinubu.
Since May 2023, the combined monthly FAAC allocations distributed to Nigeria’s 36 state governments have increased by an estimated 106 per cent to 128 per cent, effectively more than doubling their baseline revenue. In real terms, this translates into an average gross expansion of N360 billion to N420 billion extra every month.
Rather than treating these additional revenues as an opportunity to accelerate human development, some governors appear determined to embark on expensive prestige projects whose economic justification remains doubtful.
Worse, such projects often prove to be mere conduits for looting respective states’ treasuries.
It is sheer buffoonery to showcase “development” by the number of airport terminals commissioned or televised tape-cutting ceremonies.
Genuine development is reflected in lower maternal mortality, higher school enrolment, better roads, cleaner water, improved security and jobs for young people.
White elephants are not indicators of progress; on the contrary, they signify pedestrian thinking, poor planning and fiscal indiscipline.
Where airports are genuinely justified by economic activity, tourism potential, manufacturing clusters or cargo operations, they should be developed. But they must be backed by rigorous feasibility studies, realistic traffic projections and sustainable business models, not political calculations.
Equally important, Nigeria must finally embrace the privatisation and concessioning of both federal and state airports.
The current model, under which governments build airports and endlessly subsidise their operations, has proved unsustainable.
In 2024, FAAN generated about N387.8 billion in gross revenue and collected N344.6 billion but said it required about N580 billion to rehabilitate airport runways nationwide.
Private operators possess stronger commercial incentives, greater operational efficiency and easier access to investment capital for continuous upgrades.
International experience demonstrates that well-regulated airport concessions improve service quality, strengthen maintenance culture, attract new airlines and reduce the burden on public finances.
London Heathrow Airport is owned and operated by an international consortium of investors under FGP Topco. Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports are all privately owned.
Closer home, MM2 in Lagos serves as an example of what private capital can bring to airport operations.
The recent concession of the Enugu airport to Aero Alliance Limited under a 30-year PPP arrangement should serve as a template for future deals, in which investors are responsible for financing, rehabilitating, expanding, operating, and managing airports to meet international standards while ownership remains with the government.
Therefore, the government should concentrate on regulation, safety oversight and policy, while competent private investors manage airport operations on transparent and competitive terms.
Nigeria cannot continue borrowing to finance infrastructure that generates little value while neglecting investments that directly improve citizens’ welfare. Government spending must deliver measurable public benefit.
The era of airports built for governors, politicians and a privileged elite to accommodate their private jets must end.
Fiscal responsibility demands that scarce public resources be directed where they produce the greatest social and economic returns. Otherwise, what emerges is extravagance masquerading as progress.
