Stakeholders in Nigeria's aviation sector want the government to rethink how it divides the five per cent charge collected on airline tickets and cargo. They argue that the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, needs a bigger slice of this revenue to maintain and upgrade critical navigation systems that keep planes safe in Nigerian skies.
The push for change has alarmed the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA. Michael Achimugu, the NCAA's director of public affairs and consumer protection, warned that cutting the regulator's share could compromise safety oversight and weaken how well it polices the sector.
"The NCAA depends heavily on this ticket charge to carry out its core regulatory duties," Achimugu told reporters in Abuja. NAMA, by contrast, was designed to operate as a self-funding agency, he noted.
Currently, the five per cent collected from passengers and cargo shippers gets split five ways under Nigeria's Civil Aviation Act of 2022. The NCAA takes 56 per cent, NAMA gets 22 per cent, while the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMet, Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, NCAT, and Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau, NSIB, share the remainder in portions of nine, seven and six per cent respectively.
A bill moving through parliament would flip this balance. It seeks to trim the NCAA's cut from 56 per cent to 40 per cent and boost NAMA's allocation from 22 per cent to 40 per cent, after clearing its second reading in the National Assembly.
Aviation experts back the shift. Air Commodore Ademola Onitiju, retired, leads the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative and says NAMA's duties justify a fatter wallet.
"The equipment and infrastructure NAMA operates—the tools needed to safely manage Nigerian airspace—are crucial," he said, pointing to the international dimension of the work.
Onitiju stressed that modern, state-of-the-art systems directly strengthen air travel safety across the country. Yet he cautioned that the NCAA shouldn't be starved of cash either, since it handles Nigeria's obligations to the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO.
Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, an aviation safety specialist, called the existing split unfair. He flagged the real costs NAMA bears maintaining equipment at airports nationwide—multiple navigation and landing systems at each facility require calibration twice yearly.
Equipment like the Instrument Landing System, radar systems and the Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range, VOR, demand regular servicing to function properly. These aren't optional luxuries, Ojikutu's reasoning suggests, but foundational to safe flight operations.
The debate pits two legitimate needs against each other: NAMA's infrastructure demands versus the NCAA's regulatory functions. Both agencies claim they need stronger financial footing to do their jobs properly.
