Nigeria’s full ratification last year of the Cape Town convention will help the nation reach its goal of becoming the “aviation hub of Africa”, according to its aviation minister.
Speaking at the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers conference in Dublin on 13 January, Festus Keyamo said the convention’s legal safeguards will lower risks for lessors leasing aircraft to local airlines.
“Those who bring their equipment to Nigeria are safe, because we are compliant with the Cape Town convention,” says Keyamo, who is also responsible for aerospace development. “I can give my personal guarantee on that. We are here to let the world know that we are open for business.”
Nigeria – Africa’s biggest country by population and its fourth largest economy, with a rapidly expanding middle class – has long struggled with attempts to establish an international flag-carrier, or even a strong home-grown airline sector. Many lessors have been deterred from financing aircraft because of concerns that the Nigerian legal system has not been robust enough to allow them to recover their assets.
However, Keyamo says there are 23 private airlines in Nigeria, and several of these have the potential to become a future national carrier. “Our role is to empower these local operators to grow,” he says. “We have a free-market economy that allows all private operators to come in. There is no reason now why some of these local operators cannot grow.”
Nigeria’s position on the map – equidistant from north, southern, and east Africa – and the fact that Lagos-London is one of the busiest routes in Africa mean it is well placed to become a crossroads for air travel within the continent, he says. And as well as Lagos, Keyamo is keen to encourage the development of other airports. “We will be inviting the biggest players in the world to manage our airports with the aim of making them transit hubs,” he says.
As part of its efforts to put Nigeria more firmly on the international map, the government is hosting a three-day industry convention in December called the Nigeria International Airshow at a Lagos airport hotel.
“The aviation sector is making a key contribution to [Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s] ambition to create a trillion-dollar economy,” says Keyamo. “We are seeing a lot of transition into the middle class and the aviation sector must be ready. Nigeria is on a transformational journey.”
In August last year, the government and Boeing signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at making it easier for the country’s airlines to acquire new-generation aircraft from the manufacturer and its network of lessors and financiers, as well as access training and maintenance services.
