Notwithstanding the rancour, the relocation of the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) from the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development is, perhaps, one of the most thoughtful decisions taken by aviation managers in recent times, OLUSEGUN KOIKI reports.

In modern transport system, safety is not defined by the absence of accidents, but by how effectively a country manages incidents and learns from past unpleasant experiences.

Behind every air crash, train derailment, marine mishap or road disaster lie different causes – technical, human errors, regulatory and sometimes systemic.

The ability to unravel that chain, extract lessons and prevent recurrence is the essence of serious incident or accident investigation.

In Nigeria’s aviation industry, the causes of air accidents and serious incidents are known, and future occurrences are prevented to a large extent due to the existence of the former Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), now the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB). The reverse has always been the case in other modes of transportation in the country.

In other modes of transportation, like rail, maritime, and road, service providers have, for decades, also acted as investigators, thereby casting doubt on accident reports and making it difficult to prevent recurrence.

Many lives lost through road accidents and sea mishaps are not made public, while consistent rail derailments and accidents remain unresolved to date.
For years, the menace persisted not so much because of a lack of expertise as because of the structure.

But, in a bid to address the structural challenges, last week, President Bola Tinubu approved the movement of the NSIB away from the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development to reporting directly to the presidency.

The presidential approval, signed by the Permanent Secretary (General Service Office) for the Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), Dr Ibrahim Abubakar, was transmitted to the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, for immediate implementation on March 11, 2026.

The approval also directed the Attorney-General of the Federation to amend the NSIB Establishment Act 2022 to reflect the change and to forward the required amendments to the National Assembly for approval.

The NSIB was established through Act No. 35 of 2022, replacing the former AIB, which had operated solely within the aviation sector as a serious incident and accident investigator.

The document stated the new bureau was therefore mandated to investigate accidents across four transport modes – air, marine, rail and tracked vehicle systems. By law, this made the NSIB Nigeria’s only multimodal accident investigation authority.

This decision seems to have resolved a long-standing structural contradiction, which various aviation experts and analysts have craved for.

Over time, industry experts have said that for an agency that is saddled with probing rail derailments, maritime incidents and road accidents to be sandwiched to a ministry with no direct control over those sectors was a wrong arrangement and a setback.

They argued that the arrangement not only limited its authority, but also weakened inter-agency cooperation, which the bureau had been battling with in the last three years of the change of nomenclature.

This move also placed Nigeria closer to the governance architecture used by the world’s most credible transport safety systems, where accident investigation sits near the centre of national policy oversight.

Besides, funds generated from aviation alone cannot sustain the NSIB due to the expansion of its scope. Accident investigation is expensive. It involves specialised training, advanced equipment, laboratory analysis, field operations and sometimes international collaboration.

The bureau relied on small percentages from aviation-related charges to executive accident investigations in other modes of transportation in fulfilment of its act.

The NSIB gets a 6 per cent from the 5 per cent of the Ticket/Cargo Sales Charge (TSC/CSC), which is domiciled with the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and another 5 per cent from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s (FAAN) Passenger Service Charge (PSC), while its 6 per cent from the revenue generations from the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and 3 per cent from the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) are unremitted to the bureau.

Aviation experts said this move by the government was more than bureaucratic reshuffling, rather a strategic recalibration that could redefine how Nigeria investigates accidents, responds to crises and builds a safer transport ecosystem.

Major aviation countries around the world separate their accident investigators from the Ministry of Aviation. While some are domiciled with the Ministry of Transportation, others are with the presidency.

For instance, the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent agency that ensures unbiased accident investigations and safety recommendations.

The NTSB is an independent agency of the U.S. Government, and is not part of any other executive department or agency.
It reports directly to Congress. Its independence enables it to maintain objectivity and focus on improving transportation safety.

Besides, the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB), formerly the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) in Singapore, is not under the control of the Ministry of Aviation.
The bureau, which is responsible for investigating air, marine and land transport accidents and incidents, is under the Ministry of Transport (MoT).

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in the United Kingdom (UK) is not under the Ministry of Aviation, but an independent unit within the Department for Transport.

The Head of the AAIB, the Chief Inspector of Air Accidents, reports directly to the Secretary of State for Transport.

With all the aforementioned and the peculiarity of Nigeria, aviation experts in separate interviews with The Guardian agreed that the NSIB should be moved to the office of the president for more impactful functions.

Commenting on the issue, aviation analyst Samuel Caulcrick said that the relocation of the bureau to the presidency was reasonable after the expansion of its scope.

He explained that, unlike in the aviation industry, where its expansion is being constrained, NSIB under the presidency would have access to more funds, while on its mandate, it would be faster.

Caulcrick added that with the adjusted structure, the capacity of the NSIB would be able to meet the requirements in case of a multi-modal accident.

He said: “The relocation is logical for being multi-modal and not only for aviation. Besides, under the presidency, NSIB will have better funding, not constrained by the regular budget, particularly in emergencies, but funded by the presidency’s service-wide votes.

“⁠As it’s already multi-modal, its structure will only require establishing a sector corresponding desk for each transport sector. There will be overlapping experiences from the sector desks, which is a plus for accident investigations.”

For Mohammed Badamasi, the change in nomenclature indicated expansion of its scope and the need for the bureau to be expunged from the apron string of the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development.
Badamasi, however, canvassed for a change in organisational structure of NSIB to include aviation, marine, railways, automobile and pipeline and mining under the Director-General’s office.

He added: “As a result of restructuring, additional personnel from the other directorates will form the NSIB. The required equipment will be needed for the other directorates to perform their duties.

“With the adjusted structure, the capacity of the NSIB will be able to meet the requirements in case of a multi-modal accident. I guess that they know that the equipment for investigating aviation accidents is different from that for investigating railway accidents. Anything other than this arrangement will not yield the desired result.”

To aviation security expert John Ojikutu, the relocation of the NSIB to the presidency was long overdue.

According to him, it was important for the NSIB to be excised from the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development and become a standalone agency like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practises and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), among others, which operate under the supervision of the Office of the Vice President.

Ojikutu added that apart from the NSIB, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (Nimet) should also be removed from the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development.

He added: “The NSIB is responsible for rail, marine, aviation and road transportation. What makes aviation the only ministry that needs the NSIB more than the others? What makes aviation the only ministry that needs the services of Nimet more than maritime, waterways, agriculture and environment ministries?

“The US NTSB and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) are independent of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but only answerable to the Department of Transportation, which houses all modes of transportation, not just aviation alone.

“There is no country I know today that has a Ministry of Aviation, but rather a Ministry of Transportation. Aviation in most member countries of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is civil and military. The reason for Annex 17.3.1. ICAO is about civil aviation and not aviation only.”

Besides, Ayoola Adesanya, aviation analyst, said that stakeholders, especially sister agencies in other transport sectors, often rate the NSIB as one of the aviation parastatals, a perception he said often affected the level of engagement, access to information and sometimes the urgency with which its recommendations were treated.

According to him, accident investigation is unlike regulation or enforcement, noting that while regulators set rules and ensure compliance, investigators ask questions and uncover causes of such incidents.

Adesanya explained that in a bid to perform this role effectively, investigators like NSIB must operate independently of those they may investigate, noting that this principle is well-established globally.

He added: “When the NTSB, for instance, releases a report, it is trusted; not because accidents are rare, but because investigations are thorough, unbiased and insulated from political or institutional pressure.

“Nigeria’s previous arrangement did not fully meet this standard. By placing the NSIB under a line ministry, the system inadvertently blurred the line between investigator and overseer.

“Even where no interference occurred, the perception of possible influence could not be entirely dismissed. In safety investigation, perception matters almost as much as reality,” he added.

Adesanya maintained that by positioning the bureau under the presidency, the government has acknowledged that accident investigation is a national function, not a sectoral one, emphasising that this removes institutional ambiguity and strengthens the bureau’s authority across all transport modes.

The relocation of the NSIB from a ministry to the presidency marks a turning point in Nigeria’s approach to accident investigation and its alignment with global standards and recommendations.

‘Nigeria’s previous arrangement did not fully meet this standard. By placing the NSIB under a line ministry, the system inadvertently blurred the line between investigator and overseer’