The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has acknowledged that although Nigeria’s airports—particularly the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos—have seen recent upgrades, they still fall short of international standards.
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Keyamo made the admission on Sunday in response to a tweet by UK-based academic and career coach, Dr. Dipo Awojide (@OgbeniDipo), who publicly commended the improvements at the Lagos airport.
“Kudos @fkeyamo, Lagos airport has changed for good,” Dr. Awojide tweeted. “Aircraft to welcome area looks cleaner and the security area is well designed. My bag came out in 10 minutes. Exit to parking area is way better. I say this as someone who has been travelling for over 15 years. This is the easiest it has been for me in Lagos. Few more cultural issues to tackle, but overall, I acknowledge the significant improvement.”
In his response, Keyamo thanked Dr. Awojide for the positive feedback but emphasized that there is still a long way to go.
“Thank you, @OgbeniDipo, for your compliments. But our airports are still far away from global standards, I must admit,” Keyamo tweeted. “We are just making the best of the situation as we found it.”
He explained that the old MMIA terminal, built in 1977, was originally designed to handle approximately 200,000 passengers annually. However, it currently processes about 3 million passengers each year, with Nigeria’s entire airport network serving roughly 15 million passengers annually.
“See the difference! Hence, over the years, the facilities almost collapsed,” the minister noted.
Looking ahead, Keyamo assured Nigerians that the federal government is preparing to embark on comprehensive upgrades to overhaul the aging infrastructure.
“But thanks to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (@officialABAT), we are about to embark on a total rebuilding of the old MMIA in Lagos to meet modern standards, with a projection of about 20 million passengers per annum,” he said. “We will unveil the full details before Nigerians in the next few weeks.”
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