After some hopeful signs over recent years that Nigeria’s four leading international gateways—Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (ABV), Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (KAN) in Kano, Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos (LOS), and Port Harcourt’s eponymous gateway (PHC)—might be privatized, the momentum has suddenly evaporated.

Major plans for the privatization have been shelved, at least for now. Despite RFQs being issued as long ago as August 2021, the process appears to have come to an end following a September 2023 announcement from the country’s new Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development.

The Minister, Festus Keyamo, said that he was suspending the airport concessions program—and the launch of Nigeria Air a flag carrier first proposed in 2018—“due to complaints from agencies of government” and what he called “red flags” according to several national news providers.

The problem seems to be political in the sense that newly arrived Keyamo, who has only been in his aviation role since August 21st, did not want to rubber stamp projects from a previous administration over which he had not had oversight. It appears he will review the decisions made on the concessions by his predecessor Hadi Sirika in due course in the name of transparency.

On a visit to LOS—the busiest airport in Nigeria—he dropped the bad news for the bidders involved, and at the same time said that he was giving all carriers at the Lagos gateway until October 1 to move to its underused new terminal as the old one was “smelly” and “a total eyesore” in his words, with the air conditioning not working and carousels breaking down “quite often.”

Read on for more details about why the privatization process has been put on hold.

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