The National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers, Nigeria Civil Aviation Branch has warned that the regulatory authority may be crippled and safety threatened if the agency is underfunded.
In an article signed by
Chairman, National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), NCAA BranchComrade Diepreye Stephen Saburugha and the Secretary, National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), NCAA Branch, Comrade (Engr.) Celestine Nkemakolam Chukwu, the union urged the sector and the federal government to remember the dark days of air transport in Nigeria when planes were falling from the sky.
According to NAAPEE, Nigerians may have gradually moved on from the dark years when devastating air crashes repeatedly shook the nation, but aviation safety systems are built on institutional memory. The rules, inspections, certifications, and oversight systems that protect passengers today did not emerge by accident. They were strengthened through painful lessons, difficult reforms, and the collective determination that the country must never again allow avoidable safety failures to claim innocent lives.
The crash of Bellview Airlines Flight 210 crash in 2005, which claimed 117 lives, sent shockwaves across the country and exposed serious concerns about safety oversight within the aviation system. Barely months later, the ADC Airlines Flight 53 crash claimed 96 lives, deepening public grief and reinforcing the urgent need for stronger regulatory control. Years later, the tragic crash of Dana Air Flight 992 crash in Lagos again reminded Nigerians that when safety barriers fail, the consequences can be catastrophic not only for passengers onboard, but also for innocent citizens on the ground. Those tragedies, alongside other serious accidents and incidents, forced Nigeria to confront a hard truth: aviation safety can never be taken for granted, and a weak regulator ultimately places lives at risk.
It was from those painful experiences that Nigeria embarked on significant aviation reforms. Government, industry stakeholders, and international partners recognized that a safety regulator cannot effectively protect the public if it lacks the financial capacity to carry out rigorous oversight. Strengthening the regulatory system required deliberate investment in technical manpower, inspector training, certification processes, surveillance programmes, and compliance enforcement. That journey eventually helped Nigeria build one of the most respected aviation oversight systems on the continent.
It is therefore deeply troubling that a bill is currently before the National Assembly seeking to reduce the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority’s share of the 5 % Ticket Sales Charge from 56 % to 40 %, while increasing the share of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency from 23 % to 40 %. To some, this may appear to be a routine redistribution of revenue among aviation agencies. It is not. It is a policy decision with potentially serious implications for aviation safety, regulatory independence, and Nigeria’s international standing.
This is not merely a debate about revenue allocation. It is a debate about safety.
When passengers board aircraft in Nigeria, they understandably assume that someone has independently verified that the aircraft is safe to fly, that the maintenance was properly performed, that the pilots remain qualified, and that every operator complies with strict safety requirements. Most people do not see the countless regulatory activities taking place behind the scenes to make this possible. Yet these invisible layers of oversight are precisely what prevent accidents before they happen.
That responsibility rests primarily on the NCAA.
The NCAA is not just an administrative agency issuing approvals and paperwork. It is Nigeria’s principal aviation safety regulator. Its inspectors certify airlines, approve maintenance organisations, inspect aircraft, audit flight operations, approve maintenance programmes, evaluate training organisations, oversee licensing systems, investigate safety concerns, and enforce compliance with safety regulations. In simple terms, NCAA serves as the critical barrier between safe operations and unsafe ones.
Aviation safety oversight is expensive because safety failure is far more expensive.
Major accidents rarely happen without warning signs. Long before tragedy occurs, there are often technical defects, maintenance lapses, procedural failures, training deficiencies, or systemic weaknesses. The role of an effective regulator is to identify these warning signs early enough and compel corrective action before lives are lost. This process requires highly trained technical personnel, modern oversight tools, regular surveillance, and frequent inspections. Inspectors must travel to airline bases, maintenance facilities, training centres, and other operational sites, both within and outside Nigeria. They must receive recurrent training on emerging technologies, complex aircraft systems, digital avionics, Safety Management Systems, advanced maintenance methods, and new areas such as drones and advanced air mobility.
None of this happens without money.
This reality explains why the 5 % Ticket Sales Charge was introduced in the first place. It was never designed as an arbitrary levy. It emerged from the recognition that aviation safety oversight cannot depend solely on unpredictable government subventions. A regulator cannot wait endlessly for delayed budget releases before conducting inspections or funding critical safety activities. The aviation industry contributes to sustaining the regulatory system because the regulator protects both operators and the flying public.
The public must understand something fundamental about NCAA’s funding structure. Unlike some aviation agencies that directly provide operational services and charge users accordingly, NCAA’s primary responsibility is public-interest regulation. NCAA exists mainly to protect the travelling public and Nigerians on the ground from unsafe aviation operations. It is not a commercial service provider. While it charges fees for a limited number of certification and approval services rendered to operators, those fees alone are nowhere near sufficient to fund the scale of oversight activities required of a modern safety regulator.
This distinction becomes even more important when comparing NCAA with NAMA. The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency performs essential functions and deserves adequate funding. However, NAMA already enjoys several statutory revenue streams from operators for services rendered under its enabling Act, including charges associated with air navigation services. NCAA does not enjoy comparable service-based revenue streams. For the NCAA, the Ticket Sales Charge remains one of the most critical funding sources supporting its regulatory mandate. Reducing NCAA’s share therefore does not merely redistribute excess funds; it cuts directly into the financial lifeline of the institution responsible for safeguarding aviation safety.
What makes the current proposal especially troubling is that NCAA is already under severe financial pressure.
This is not speculation. It is widely known within the aviation industry that the Authority is struggling to adequately fund several critical safety oversight activities. Important inspections and surveillance exercises are increasingly constrained by limited resources. Inspectors are owed significant allowances. Duty Tour Allowances associated with oversight and surveillance activities have accumulated over time. Certain staff allowances have been reduced or cut altogether. Months of entitlements remain unpaid in some cases because available funds are no longer sufficient to meet operational demands and personnel obligations.
The depth of NCAA’s financial distress becomes even clearer when one examines its present operational realities. In the last five years alone, the Authority has lost more than 60 inspectors and technical personnel to attrition, largely driven by poor remuneration and better opportunities elsewhere. This represents a major loss of institutional knowledge and technical capacity for a regulator whose effectiveness depends heavily on specialized expertise built over many years.
The severity of the remuneration challenge is further illustrated by NCAA’s recent attempt to address the growing welfare concerns of its technical workforce. Recognizing the urgent need to improve the remuneration and retention of its inspectors, the Authority undertook a review of its Conditions of Service and submitted the proposed revision to the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission for approval. Even the proposals submitted, which many stakeholders already considered modest and insufficient to fully address the widening pay gap between NCAA inspectors and their counterparts in competing sectors, were further reduced by the Commission before approval. Yet, despite securing this reduced approval as far back as January 2026, NCAA has remained unable to implement the revised Conditions of Service because of insufficient funds. This stark reality exposes the true depth of the Authority’s financial crisis. A regulator that cannot implement even an already reduced and approved remuneration structure for its critical workforce is a regulator operating under severe financial distress.
The funding challenge is further worsened by the fact that government automatically deducts about 30 % from NCAA’s revenues at source. The implications are severe. Even when operators pay specific fees intended to cover the cost of regulatory services such as inspections, including flight tickets, hotel accommodation, transportation, feeding, and other logistics required for inspectors to perform oversight activities, those funds are still subjected to the same deductions. In practical terms, monies collected to fully fund an inspection are reduced before the inspection is even carried out, leaving NCAA to bridge the shortfall from its already strained resources.
The situation has deteriorated to the point where inspectors sometimes personally fund official oversight activities using their own money, with the expectation of later reimbursement. In many cases, these reimbursements remain unpaid for months or even years, creating a growing backlog of debts owed to inspectors. Unsurprisingly, many inspectors have become increasingly unwilling to undertake further inspections when outstanding allowances for previously completed assignments remain unpaid. This is a deeply troubling development. A safety oversight system cannot sustainably function when regulatory inspections depend on the personal financial sacrifices of inspectors rather than institutional funding.
These are not mere staff welfare complaints.
They are direct safety concerns.
An inspector who cannot travel because surveillance funds are unavailable is not simply inconvenienced. An audit may be delayed. A safety verification exercise may be postponed. A corrective action may remain unconfirmed. A maintenance concern may persist longer than it should. Safety gaps rarely announce themselves loudly. They often widen quietly until an accident exposes them.
The financial strain has become so serious that NCAA itself has publicly raised concerns about the unsustainable pressure it faces. The Authority has questioned why government continues to deduct portions of revenues needed for critical regulatory functions and has indicated that funding constraints are increasingly affecting service delivery. That is the reality today. Yet, rather than strengthening NCAA’s financial capacity, some now propose to cut its statutory funding even further.
This is difficult to justify.
If anything, government should be asking how to help NCAA recover from its present financial difficulties, improve inspector welfare, clear outstanding entitlements, and strengthen technical capacity. Instead, some are proposing to weaken it further.
Even a 0.00001% reduction in NCAA’s statutory share would be dangerous.
A reduction from 56 % to 40 % would be severe.
The danger extends beyond immediate operational funding. It directly threatens human capital, which is arguably the most critical component of effective safety oversight.
NCAA’s effectiveness depends heavily on the competence, experience, and integrity of its inspectors and technical professionals. Yet the Authority continues to suffer significant attrition as highly trained personnel leave for better-paying opportunities with foreign regulators, airlines, maintenance organisations, manufacturers, and consulting firms. Over many years, NCAA has invested substantial resources in building this technical expertise through expensive local and international training, only to watch much of that capacity migrate elsewhere because remuneration has become increasingly uncompetitive.
This growing brain drain should alarm every Nigerian. A regulator deprived of experienced technical personnel cannot sustain strong safety oversight.
It must also be noted that NCAA’s workforce is not made up only of technical personnel, important as they are to safety oversight. The Authority also depends on staff in other critical directorates and departments such as consumer protection and passenger complaints, finance, legal services, human resources, administration, information technology, procurement, and other support functions. These professionals equally require remuneration, capacity building, and continuous training for the Authority to function effectively. However, even with these important support functions, the core truth remains that safety oversight, the primary mandate of NCAA, is highly resource-intensive and cannot be sustained under weakened funding.
ICAO recognizes this reality. ICAO Document 9734, Safety Oversight Manual, Part A, paragraph 3.3.2.4 states that the cost of recruiting and retaining qualified technical personnel represents a significant financial commitment and may require revisions to longstanding remuneration policies. The same paragraph further emphasizes that, in order to recruit and retain appropriately qualified personnel who combine professionalism and integrity, State authorities must become competitive employers.
That statement is particularly relevant to Nigeria today.
Without competitive remuneration and sustainable funding, the regulator loses technical competence. Without technical competence, oversight weakens. When oversight weakens, safety risks rise.
ICAO has repeatedly warned States about the dangers of underfunding civil aviation regulators. ICAO Document 9734, Part A, paragraph 2.3.1(c) states that an effective and sustainable State Safety Oversight system is characterized by the continuous allocation of the necessary financial and human resources for State authorities to effectively carry out their responsibilities, functions, and activities. Paragraph 2.4.3 further observes that financial constraints on Civil Aviation Authorities around the world have become a significant root cause of non-implementation of ICAO Standards. Paragraph 2.4.4 clearly states that State authorities responsible for safety oversight should be provided with the necessary human and financial resources to enable them effectively fulfil their safety oversight responsibilities.
The implications are not merely domestic.
Nigeria’s global aviation credibility is also at stake.
Nigeria recently achieved an impressive 91.4 % Effective Implementation score under ICAO’s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme. This achievement significantly strengthened international confidence in Nigeria’s aviation safety system. It signaled to foreign airlines, investors, aircraft lessors, insurers, financiers, and international partners that Nigeria possesses a credible safety oversight framework.
This confidence carries real economic value.
Investment decisions in aviation are heavily influenced by regulatory credibility.
A weak regulator discourages confidence.
A strong regulator attracts investment.
It is therefore worth remembering that ICAO specifically evaluates whether regulators are adequately funded. Protocol Question 2.051 under the ICAO audit framework asks whether the Civil Aviation Authority has adequate funding to carry out its activities. Anyone familiar with NCAA’s present realities knows that the Authority has been meeting these expectations despite serious financial strain. The obvious question therefore becomes unavoidable: if NCAA is already struggling to maintain adequate funding at 56 %, how can anyone rationally justify reducing that share to 40 %?
The truth is uncomfortable but clear.
This bill does not strengthen aviation safety.
It weakens it.
Those supporting this proposal must understand the weight of what they are doing. If a regulator is deliberately deprived of the resources required to perform effective safety oversight, any future decline in safety performance cannot be described as unforeseeable. The warning signs already exist.
Nigerians should know who the architects of such decisions are.
If policies that cripple NCAA’s financial autonomy contribute to weakened oversight, deteriorating safety performance, preventable incidents, or future accidents, responsibility will not lie only with the regulator struggling under financial strangulation. Responsibility will also rest with lawmakers and others who knowingly supported policies that undermined the regulator’s capacity to protect lives.
This conversation must therefore be reframed.
The question is not whether NCAA can survive with less funding.
The real question is whether Nigeria is prepared to gamble with aviation safety.
The answer should be obvious.
NCAA should not lose even a 0.000001% of its current statutory share. If present realities suggest anything at all, it is that the Authority requires stronger financial autonomy, not weaker. Government should be exploring ways to strengthen NCAA’s funding, improve inspector remuneration, clear outstanding allowances, enhance technical capacity, and ensure long-term sustainability of safety oversight.
A nation that weakens its safety regulator weakens the safety of its skies.
Nigeria must not make that mistake.
