Nigeria’s aviation industry is staring at a major meltdown as new tax laws threaten to send domestic airfares soaring beyond ₦1 million, with airlines facing possible shutdowns, Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema, has warned.
Speaking on ARISE NEWS on Sunday, Onyema said the sector is being crushed by taxes, levies and overlapping charges, leaving operators barely able to survive and passengers facing astronomical ticket prices.
“Nigerian airlines are heavily overburdened by taxes, levies and all manner of charges. Take a ticket of about N350,000—what actually comes to the airline is roughly N81,000. Yet people talk as if airlines are making huge profits. That is not true,” he said.
He pointed to multiple deductions imposed on airlines, including the compulsory five per cent charge by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), which he described as part of a system bleeding operators dry.
Onyema lamented that government policies have swung sharply against airlines.
While the 2020 tax law had provided lifelines—exempting imported aircraft, spare parts and engines from customs duties and VAT, and removing VAT on ticket sales—the new laws have reversed those gains.
According to him, the reintroduction of a 7.5 per cent VAT on aircraft purchases and spare parts could spell disaster for local carriers already struggling to stay afloat.
Adding to the controversy, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has warned against any attempt to re-gazette the tax laws, insisting that such a move would be unconstitutional.
He cautioned that hurried re-gazetting would set a dangerous precedent, especially amid allegations that the versions of the laws gazetted by the Presidency differ from those passed by the National Assembly.
In a statement on Sunday, Atiku described any law published in a form not approved by lawmakers as “a nullity,” stressing that gazetting is only an administrative process and cannot legalise an illegality.
