Nigeria: Challenge of Rebuilding Airport Infrastructure

Chinedu Eze

Many industry observers are of the view that government waited for too long before it started working to modernise and expand the old terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, known as Terminal 1.

The terminal meant for between 250, 000 and 300, 000 passengers per annum when it was put in use in 1979, grew its passenger traffic from that number to almost three million per annum before government started renovation and expansion work and until the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, past efforts were spiced by politics and lack of vision.

One of the facilities that suffered most at that airport was the carousel. There was a time when passengers would wait for hours for their luggage and later go home without it and come back the following day. The carousel was changed many times and the number increased but the problem remained.

Many Nigerians might have forgotten those days of anxiety and worry; the terminal was usually crowded by passengers, their relatives, touts, airport workers who finished their duties and stayed behind to make quick money, the taxi drivers who literally hound arriving passengers. So much has changed at the airport infrastructure, especially in the last three years.

Serious changes are taking place at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. It is now a construction site because of the massive expansion project that is going on. But anyone who attended the opening of the new terminal by the former President Muhammadu Buhari in March, 2022, may not be able to recognise how it was then because of the massive changes taking place.

The revival of the car park in front of Terminal One has changed the façade of the airport. The new roads built and new ones being constructed have given modernity to the airport, even still under construction.

Kudos must be given to the management of FAAN for the way it rallied to ensure that the fire that gutted the Terminal One on February 23, 2026 did not disrupt flight operations beyond two hours because things returned to normal afterwards despite the damage done to the infrastructure.

But the question that keeps on popping up is, why has there been continuous remedial action since after the new terminal was built. Under Hadi Sirika, the immediate past Minister of Aviation, a lot of work was done at the new terminal; yet, when the airlines were asked to relocate to the new terminal after the fire that burnt the baggage area of the Terminal One in 2023, some international airlines refused to move to the new facility.

The last fire that gutted Terminal One seems to have served as tonic to speed up the reconstruction of the terminal, but at the beginning of this year, work had really starter in earnest.

So, FAAN is undertaking a massive N712 billion rehabilitation of Terminal One and expansion of the airport, including crucial enhancements to runway infrastructure and associated terminal facilities to meet global safety and operational standards.

The transformation will include the rehabilitation of runways and taxiways along with the installation of enhanced airfield ground lighting (CAT 11) to improve safety and support 24-hour, all- weather operations. There will also be the relocation of existing hangars to expand the apron to accommodate more wide-body aircraft.

In order to improve security at the airport, there would be installation of a 14.6-kilometre steel perimeter fence equipped with advanced intrusion detection, CCTV, and solar-powered floodlights to boost security.

So, the infrastructure modernisation of the airport includes upgrading the exterior façade and interior, enhancing electrical and mechanical installations, and expanding Terminal 2 to increase capacity. By the time this is completed, it is expected that the nation’s busiest airport wold have transformed into a modern airport that will compete with the best in Africa.

When the new terminal was built, it was built in such a hurry that many factors were not considered. According to insiders, there were structural deficiencies that took a long time to correct. But the major deficiency was inadequate ramp at the new terminal. In fact, during her presentation in a recent Aviation Round Table Breakfast meeting in Lagos, the Managing Director of FAAN, Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, explained that the terminal would not have been built at that side of the Terminal one but at the side close to the runway.

Now, the private terminals, Dominion and Ever Green, fixed base operators will have to vacate so that the ramp will be expanded to accommodate bigger planes at the new terminal.

The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is poised to expand the Lagos and Abuja airports so that they will meet the ever-increasing number of passenger traffic, as more Nigerians travel in and out of the country. This is in addition to the plan to establish the two airports as hubs to help Nigerian airlines to grow and expand their services to international destinations. It is in response to this that the federal government decided to build transit facility at the airports This will enable Nigerian carriers to bring passengers from the West Coast and take them to farther destinations in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Kuku during her presentation at the ART in Lagos recently explained that FAAN was developing duel hub airports in Lagos and in Abuja.

“Lagos serves as our primary commercial gateway, handling the bulk of international passenger and cargo traffic. At the same time, Abuja complements this as a political and administrative hub with increasing capacity for international connectivity. Together, these airports form the backbone of Nigeria’s hub strategy,” she said.

Kuku noted that the agency is prioritising infrastructure modernisation, which includes upgrading terminals, improving runway capacity, and deploying advanced air traffic management systems via the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Project. These investments, she remarked, are critical to ensuring safety, reducing delays, and creating the level of efficiency expected of a global hub.

Some of these facility improvements include expansion of the MMIA with increased throughput. FAAN has already built and put in operation 8,000uilt -square-metre temporary departure hall capable of handling up to 1,500 passengers at peak periods.

The Tinubu administration is also on high-level engagements for the development of a Monorail at MMIA for Terminal connectivity in order to cut movement time between the domestic wing and international wing of the airport. It has to be noted that sometimes commuting from the domestic wing to the international wing of the airport could be delayed due to traffic congestion. In fact, many passengers have missed their flight when coming from Ikeja, Lagos to the international wing of the terminal. So, the monorail is a critical project.

Industry observers are of the view that the reconstruction and remodelling of the airports going on under the current administration is more purposeful and visionary because it goes beyond building projects for political campaign. The administration has shown the determination to solve three critical problems that have retarded the growth of air transport in Nigeria. One is having state of the art airport, two, to have a terminal with capacity to accommodate future increase in passenger traffic and three is to prepare Lagos and Abuja airports to become hubs by providing the crucial transit facilities.