By Dickson Omobola

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, has said the perceived risks attributed to Nigerian airlines by lessors are untrue.

Keyamo said many Nigerian airlines operate their fleet on Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance, ACMIs, without defaulting, saying it was an indication that Nigerian carriers adhere to agreements.

He spoke during the Aviation Working Group, AWG, panel session at the Aviation Economics Conference in Dublin.

He said: “I think the risk that the world perceives is not real within Africa, within Nigeria. For example, most airlines run their fleet on ACMIs and they can meet all their obligations. The ACMIs they run come with various obligations, including financial obligations. You do not have a lot of them defaulting.

“It means that we have very responsible airlines within Nigeria, viable airlines and a travelling population that we can feed on. We want to let the world know that this risk that they perceive is not real.”

On insurance, he said: “We are working with insurance stakeholders and I am just happy to let you know that they are also here with us. They are here in Dublin with us and we are having a big session tomorrow with insurance stakeholders from Nigeria together with other stakeholders around the world for them to understand our position better and whether we can place the risk within the local market in Nigeria or whether the local regulators who are also here can allow us to place the risk in maybe some other places.

“That is a conversation going on and we want to ensure that we untie that knot. It is a challenge. We want to untie that knot around insurance. We also have the problem that you mentioned of withholding tax.

“That is an internal problem we’re looking at because the airlines are meant to pay more, 10 per cent withholding tax beyond, you know, over and above what others pay. That is also a challenge and we want to ensure that we work with them to see how we can cross that problem and so that the team margin in which they work, the team which they operate can be bigger than it is now.”

Asked if he sees Nigeria as a West African hub, the minister said: “We are naturally placed to be the hub of Africa. We have drawbacks now. We are late coming to the party. Ethiopia has gone a bit ahead. Angola has made an ambitious effort.

“Like I said, in terms of population, in terms of ambition, in terms of geographical location, we are better placed to be the hub of Africa. If you look at the position of Nigeria, for those who are not familiar with the African map, look at the African map. We are virtually equidistant to all parts of the world, to the north, to the south, to the east and the west.

“We are late to the party, but we are driving ourselves to the limit to get to that position and overtake even those present hubs in Africa. For now, we have a very ambitious plan to concession our airports and to expand them into bigger hubs than they are now.

“Most of the biggest airports in the world are now run by governments, they have been concessioned out. I think that is what we are also driving ourselves to do.

“The President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu, has also given a nod to that, that we should go ahead and invite the biggest players in the world to manage our airports, to expand them to big hubs.”