Unlike many of its peers in Europe and across Africa, Nigeria has struggled to accurately capture passenger movement data, a deficiency that creates challenges for government agencies and investors, OLUSEGUN KOIKI reports.

For an industry where billions of naira and dollars are invested in aircraft, airports, terminals, ground handling, cargo, maintenance and other infrastructure, one would expect passenger traffic statistics to be among the most reliable figures available to investors.

But in Nigeria, even something as important as the number of passengers who passed through the country’s airports has become a matter of conjecture, with the latest controversy centring on the 2025 passenger traffic figure.

The Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Olubunmi Kuku, recently said the country’s 28 airports recorded more than 18.8 million domestic and international passengers in 2025, representing an 11.9 per cent year-on-year increase and making Nigeria Africa’s fourth-largest aviation market.

She also said Nigeria’s scheduled airline capacity reached 1.19 million seats in September 2026, representing a 37.4 per cent increase over the same period in the previous year, based on OAG data.

She further explained that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, recorded a 24.1 per cent increase in scheduled seat capacity in September, the fastest growth among Africa’s 10 largest airports.

The 18.8 million figure, mentioned by Kuku at the 2026 Airports Council International (ACI) Africa Regional Conference and Exhibition held last week in Abuja, has been queried by various industry experts because it contradicts figures previously published or presented by other government agencies.

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), for instance, reported that Nigeria recorded 15.89 million passengers in 2023, down from 16.17 million in 2022. The 2023 figure has also been cited in an International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) document on Nigeria’s aviation sector.

For 2024, NCAA data put combined domestic and international passenger traffic at 15,685,273, representing a marginal decline from the 15.89 million recorded in 2023. Another industry source put total passenger movement for 2025 at 15.6 million.

Besides, experts wondered how passenger traffic could have risen from about 15.69 million in 2024 to nearly 19 million in 2025 – an increase of more than three million passengers, or about 20 per cent – while FAAN pegged the growth at 11.9 per cent.

Stakeholders reckon that a prospective investor considering an airport concession, passenger terminal, hotel, car park, cargo centre or ground handling operation needs reliable market size and passenger data for planning, warning that inconsistent data presentation poses a grave danger to investment.

Commenting on the issue, the former Managing Director of Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc, Basil Agboarumi, said data in aviation was not just academic.

Agboarumi, who is now the Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) Aviation Hub, said that contradictory passenger, cargo, and aircraft movement statistics could undermine investment, safety planning, and Nigeria’s credibility as an aviation hub.

He pointed out that inaccurate or conflicting aviation data could be potentially more damaging than having no data, maintaining that it could create “false confidence” among policymakers, investors and other stakeholders.

According to him, the recurring discrepancies indicated the urgent need for the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development to revive and strengthen the Aviation Statistics Harmonisation Committee and establish a single authoritative data pipeline for the industry.

On why aviation data are always contested in the country, Agboarumi identified institutional silos as one of the major reasons, adding that the agencies collect data for different purposes.

He said: “I was aware of the Aviation Statistics Harmonisation Committee. Stakeholders – regulators, airport operators, airlines, ground handlers and others – sat together, presented captured data, reconciled it under a single system and the Ministry of Aviation released one official document as acceptable industry data.

“SAHCO staff participated in that process. If that discipline has weakened, the current discrepancies are a predictable outcome.

“The NCAA, FAAN, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), immigration, customs, airlines and ground handlers all collect data for different mandates. Each has its own template, timeline and purpose. No single source of truth. There is no fully empowered statutory custodian or clearinghouse that reconciles all data before publication.”

Also, the Chief Executive Officer, Merchant Express Cargo Airlines, Samuel Caulcrick, said Nigeria’s aviation industry was being held back by fragmented data systems and the absence of a unified standard for collecting, analysing and reporting industry statistics.

He explained that data was an “afterthought” in Nigeria, with stakeholders often using it to prepare reports or apportion blame after operational failures, rather than as a tool for improving efficiency and decision-making.

According to him, the absence of reliable and harmonised data was contributing to fragmented infrastructure, friction between operators and regulators, and inaccurate forecasting across the aviation industry.

Caulcrick said the industry collected data mainly to write reports, engage in arguments and assign responsibility after incidents, rather than deploying it continuously to improve operations.

Like Agboarumi, Caulcrick identified institutional silos as the central problem, noting that the NCAA, FAAN, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), among others, often collect, process, and publish data differently.

According to him, the resulting discrepancies had created uncertainty over basic aviation statistics, particularly passenger traffic.

He added: “FAAN’s terminal logs rarely match NCAA’s consumer records. Even NBS and NCAA have published passenger traffic figures for the same year with massive percentage gaps. Which number should an investor believe?

“When the NCAA released its August 2026 report, showing 60 per cent domestic delay across 15 carriers, Air Peace immediately pushed back. The NCAA recorded 1,864 flights for the airline; the airline says it operated 2,564. Understate the volume, and you automatically overstate the delay rate. Trust collapses.”

The former Rector of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, said the disagreement demonstrated the need for aviation stakeholders to work from a common, independently verifiable database, rather than relying on separate datasets maintained by individual organisations.

Caulcrick proposed three major changes – integration of data infrastructure, contextual analytics, and standardised benchmarking – to address the challenge of data collection and dissemination in the sector.

Besides, Caulcrick called for the industry to move beyond simply recording whether a flight was delayed to determining the underlying cause of each delay.

He insisted aviation data should identify whether delays resulted from weather, Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situations, fuelling problems, crew issues, airspace restrictions, VIP movements or other operational factors.

He posited that until the industry began treating data as a critical operational resource, rather than material for post-mortem reports, airlines and passengers would continue to bear the consequences of inconsistent metrics.

The Chief Executive Officer of Centurion Security Limited, John Ojikutu, called for greater clarity and independent auditing of passenger traffic and revenue figures generated by aviation agencies.

Ojikutu argued that the 18.8 million figure appeared difficult to reconcile with passenger volumes at some of Africa’s major aviation markets.

He charged FAAN with providing a comparative breakdown of major Nigerian airports, particularly Lagos and Abuja, alongside airports in Johannesburg, Cairo, Morocco, and Addis Ababa.

He also recalled that FAAN and the NCAA had previously released contradictory passenger figures, arguing that the agencies needed to reconcile their data and subject both passenger numbers and related revenues to the necessary audits.

Also, the Group Managing Director of Finchglow Holdings, Bankole Bernard, called on the Federal Government to lead the establishment of a centralised data system to collect and reconcile key statistics and other financial data in the country’s aviation industry.

He argued that this would go a long way in resolving data disputes among government agencies.

According to him, it was necessary for the country’s aviation industry to leverage available technology to create a single, verifiable data source accessible to all authorised stakeholders.

He maintained that airlines, regulators and other agencies could have individual login credentials to access information relevant to their operations, while the data remained housed on a single central platform.

He said: “Such an arrangement will significantly reduce disagreements over the amount collected, the amount due and whether remittances have been made.

“It is necessary to automate the entire process in the sector, including calculation of obligations, electronic payment, reconciliation and generation of receipts. Data needs to be believable and should be accurate.”

A former engineer with the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways, Chris Amokwu, emphasised that collaboration, consolidation, and credible data were essential for the sector to grow.

For instance, Amokwu said ground handlers needed passenger and aircraft movement forecasts to determine equipment, manpower and investment requirements, airlines required passenger demand data to determine routes and aircraft deployment, while airport operators needed the same statistics to determine terminal capacity.

He also said investors needed reliable numbers for effective planning and capital injection.

He added: “FAAN and NCAA should publish the underlying methodology and airport-by-airport breakdown for the 2025 figure. What investors struggle with is uncertainty over the basic size of the market.”