BY: Onome Amawhe

Nigeria has had aviation ministers who built airports, strengthened regulation and opened its skies. What makes Festus Keyamo different — and is it enough to call him the best?

There is a temptation in Nigerian public life to declare every energetic office-holder unprecedented.
A minister repairs a terminal and suddenly nothing existed before him. An administration commissions a project and history appears to begin on commissioning day.

Festus Keyamo deserves a more serious assessment.

Since becoming Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development in August 2023, Keyamo has developed an unusually prominent profile in a ministry long associated with ambitious masterplans, struggling airlines, deteriorating airports, abandoned projects and periodic attempts at reinvention.

He has confronted aircraft-leasing problems, pushed for greater reciprocity in international aviation agreements, challenged inherited projects and placed the commercial viability of Nigerian airlines closer to the centre of policy.

That has encouraged a growing claim: perhaps Keyamo is Nigeria’s best aviation minister.
History, however, makes that conclusion more complicated.

Nigeria’s aviation story stretches across more than six decades of infrastructure development, regulatory reform, airline collapse, safety crises and policy experimentation.

The proper question is therefore not whether Keyamo appears effective in isolation, but how his record compares with what came before.

A fair assessment should consider five areas: safety and regulation, infrastructure, airline viability, international competitiveness and institutional durability.
On those tests, Keyamo is building a strong case.

But it is not yet a finished one.

The system before Keyamo

Nigeria inherited a functioning aviation structure at independence.

Nigeria Airways had been established in 1958, and by 1961 the Federal Government had acquired full ownership. For a time, it became a major symbol of Nigeria’s international ambition.

Then came the airport-building era of the 1970s.

The Nigerian Airports Authority was created in 1976, Murtala Muhammed International Airport’s international terminal opened in 1979, and several airports around the country were developed or expanded.

Measured purely by physical infrastructure, that era remains difficult for any contemporary minister to match.
But infrastructure alone did not create a sustainable aviation economy.

Nigeria Airways eventually deteriorated under political interference, debt, weak commercial discipline and poor management. By the time it was liquidated in 2003, a once-proud national carrier had become a warning about state-run aviation.

Nigeria had built airports.

It had not built a sufficiently resilient aviation business.
That distinction remains important.

The safety and regulation era

Another major turning point came through regulation.

The establishment of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the strengthening of independent safety oversight reshaped the industry.

The Civil Aviation Act 2006 strengthened the NCAA’s autonomy at a time when fatal crashes had badly damaged public confidence.

Nigeria subsequently attained United States FAA Category One safety status in 2010.

These reforms were less visible than new terminals, but arguably more important.

A minister can build an impressive airport, but weak regulation can undermine the entire sector.

Keyamo therefore inherited institutions created and strengthened by earlier administrations.

Any claim that he is the best must acknowledge that legacy.

Airport transformation also predates him

The Stella Oduah era also deserves objective recognition.

Her administration launched a wide airport-remodelling programme and initiated major new international terminals in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu.

Some of those projects crossed multiple administrations.

That makes aviation history difficult to assign neatly.

One minister conceives a project.

Another supervises it.

A third commissions it.

Hadi Sirika later developed an ambitious aviation roadmap covering airport concessions, aircraft leasing, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul facilities, cargo terminals, aerotropolis projects and a national carrier.

The Buhari administration also commissioned several major terminals, while the Civil Aviation Act 2022 further strengthened the sector’s legal architecture.

But Sirika’s tenure also demonstrated the dangers of judging aviation by announcements.

Several projects remained incomplete. Nigeria Air became controversial. Airport concessions did not fully materialise.

Keyamo therefore inherited not an empty table, but one crowded with unfinished business.

Where Keyamo begins to look different

Keyamo’s strongest case may lie not in airport construction but in airline economics.

For years, Nigerian airlines faced a structural disadvantage that received far less attention than terminals and runways.

Modern airlines depend heavily on leasing.

But international aircraft lessors had become wary of Nigeria because of concerns over repossession, contractual enforcement and compliance with the Cape Town Convention.

That made it difficult and expensive for Nigerian airlines to access aircraft on terms available to their competitors elsewhere.

Keyamo made changing that situation one of his central priorities.

Reforms around the Cape Town Convention and enforcement of Irrevocable De-registration and Export Request Authorisation significantly improved Nigeria’s standing and helped move the country off the Aviation Working Group watchlist.

Then came a tangible result: Air Peace received a Boeing 737-700 on dry lease from AerCap, described as the first such Nigerian transaction in roughly a decade.

That may eventually prove more consequential than some terminal commissioning ceremonies.

Without affordable aircraft, airlines cannot expand capacity.

Without capacity, competition remains weak.

Without competition, fares remain high.

And without stronger airlines, Nigeria can sign bilateral aviation agreements while foreign carriers continue dominating Nigerian traffic.

Keyamo appears to understand that chain.

That is one of the strongest arguments in his favour.

A more assertive aviation diplomacy

Keyamo has also been more muscular in international aviation diplomacy.

Nigeria has signed numerous Bilateral Air Service Agreements, but traffic rights are meaningless if foreign airlines possess the fleet and network strength to exploit them while Nigerian carriers cannot.

For years, Nigeria often supplied passengers to foreign airlines without developing domestic operators capable of competing effectively on international routes.

Keyamo has increasingly treated Nigerian airlines as instruments of national aviation policy.
That matters.

A country of Nigeria’s size should not merely feed passengers into London, Dubai, Doha, Addis Ababa, Istanbul and Amsterdam.

Its airlines should be able to compete for part of that traffic.

Keyamo’s emphasis on reciprocity therefore marks an important change in tone and policy.

He has also been willing to stop things

Ministers are usually judged by what they launch.

Sometimes they should also be judged by what they refuse to continue.

Keyamo suspended the inherited Nigeria Air project rather than proceed automatically.
Given the history of Nigeria Airways, scepticism about creating another publicly backed carrier is not necessarily a lack of ambition.

A national airline is not automatically a national asset.

It can become a national liability.

Keyamo also publicly challenged a proposed ₦532 billion variation for Abuja’s second runway.

In a system where inflated infrastructure costs can become normalised, questioning a project’s price can be as important as approving it.

The biggest test is durability

The most important question may be whether Keyamo’s reforms survive him.

Aviation policy is not truly successful because one minister is energetic.

It succeeds when institutions continue functioning after the minister leaves office.
This is where contractual credibility becomes crucial.

Aircraft lessors, airport concessionaires and private investors all ask essentially the same question:

Will Nigeria honour agreements?

If the answer is uncertain, capital becomes more expensive or disappears.

Keyamo’s focus on leasing rules, airport concessions and contractual obligations therefore addresses a deeper credibility problem within Nigerian aviation.

But this is not yet an aviation miracle

This is where praise must stop.

Domestic fares remain extremely high.

Airlines still struggle with aviation fuel costs, foreign exchange exposure, expensive financing, maintenance bills and multiple taxes and charges.

Passenger frustration remains widespread.

Delays and cancellations remain common.

Nigerian airlines are still financially fragile, and the country’s aviation history is filled with carriers that appeared, expanded and disappeared.

Keyamo has argued that government cannot simply regulate fares downward in a deregulated market.
Economically, that argument is reasonable.

The more sustainable answer is additional aircraft, more capacity and stronger competition.
But that now has to produce visible results.

Aircraft must enter Nigerian fleets in meaningful numbers.

Capacity must expand.

Competition must deepen.

Reliability must improve.

Passengers must eventually feel the benefit.

Until then, the leasing breakthrough remains an important reform whose full effect is still being tested.

Then there is Lagos

Infrastructure remains another major test.

Murtala Muhammed International Airport’s old terminal dates back to 1979 and has long fallen short of the standard expected of Nigeria’s principal international gateway.

The Federal Government’s large rehabilitation programme is therefore understandable.

But its cost demands scrutiny.

Nigeria has seen too many major projects whose eventual price becomes difficult to justify.

The correct judgment will depend on four things: cost, quality, completion time and functionality.

If Lagos finally becomes an efficient international hub, Keyamo’s historical standing will rise considerably.

If the project becomes another prolonged and inflated public works story, it will count heavily against him.

So, is Keyamo Nigeria’s best aviation minister?

Not yet.

But that is not a dismissal.

Earlier administrations have stronger claims in airport development.

Others deserve greater credit for modern aviation regulation and safety reform.

Several initiated infrastructure projects that Keyamo now benefits from.
What distinguishes him is different.

He may not yet have the largest physical legacy in Nigerian aviation, but few ministers have attacked as many of the industry’s underlying commercial constraints simultaneously.

Aircraft acquisition.

Contract enforcement.

Airline competitiveness.

International reciprocity.

Private investment.

Airport commercialisation.

These are not separate problems.

They are parts of the same aviation economy.

That is why the Cape Town Convention reforms matter.

A terminal can impress passengers. A runway can create capacity. But if airlines cannot obtain aircraft competitively, finance expansion or compete internationally, Nigeria still does not possess a healthy aviation industry.

Nigeria has built terminals before.

It has created national airlines before.

It has written aviation roadmaps before.

What it has repeatedly struggled to build is an aviation economy capable of sustaining airlines, attracting capital and competing internationally.

If Keyamo’s reforms eventually bring significant numbers of aircraft into Nige rian fleets, strengthen domestic airlines, increase competition, improve airports and survive political transitions, history may place him extremely high.

Perhaps even at the top.

But that judgment must be earned by outcomes rather than momentum.

For now, the more defensible conclusion is that Festus Keyamo is building one of the strongest aviation records of Nigeria’s democratic era.

His aircraft is climbing impressively.

Whether it reaches cruising altitude will depend on what Nigerian aviation looks like after the headlines and ministerial tenure have passed.