Lomé 2026: FAAN rejects call for new ‘aviation banks’, urges specialised DFI desks

Against the backdrop of the newly signed Lomé Ministerial Declaration aimed at hacking down regional air travel charges, Nigeria has drawn a firm line regarding how continental infrastructure should be financed.

Speaking on Day Two of the First African Air Transport Convention & Expo 2026 in Lomé, Olubunmi Kuku, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), rejected calls for the establishment of new, standalone aviation financing institutions.

Instead, she urged global lenders to embed specialised industry desks within existing frameworks to quickly build a bankable pipeline of regional projects.

Participating in a high-level panel titled “Strategic Direction on Aviation Financing and Infrastructure Development,” Kuku argued that capital availability is no longer the primary bottleneck choking African aviation. Rather, the continent is facing a severe deficit in structural project preparation, market-risk management, and cross-border continuity.

“I know I’ve heard quite a lot of talk from different people around setting up different sort of financing institutions. I strongly do not support that,” Kuku stated candidly during the session. “I’d rather that the existing financing institutions set up specialised desks to understand the aviation environment.”

According to the FAAN boss, inserting sector-specific experts directly into active Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) would allow financiers to work hand-in-hand with airport operators through Project Preparation Facilities (PPFs). This collaborative approach ensures that African states can present technically sound, bankable projects that account for the entire end-to-end aviation value chain.

To prove that local authorities are ready to match private capital with hard internal liquidity, Kuku disclosed that FAAN is actively exploring public-private co-financing models for its intermodal transport projects in Lagos.

“We do have a rail project—an extension of the Red Line from Lagos into my terminals,” she revealed to the pan-African audience. “There are opportunities for us to potentially co-finance because I do have the cash flows, obviously, to support that. But those conversations need to happen early, and regional priority projects need to be put at the top of the financing scale.”

The Resolution of the MMA2 Dispute

A major highlight of the panel was Nigeria’s evolving stance on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). Kuku emphasised that successful PPP models cannot rely solely on the depth of an investor’s pockets; they require unshakeable institutional credibility, regulatory certainty, and strict contract discipline.

To validate this, she cited the formal, Federal Executive Council (FEC) level resolution of the long-contested Bi-Courtney Aviation Services (MMA2) concession contract in Lagos. The historic dispute, which had long served as a major pain-point for private infrastructure investment in West Africa, has been thoroughly renegotiated under the current administration.

“I’m happy to say that within this administration, we’ve done quite a bit of work in renegotiating the contract for the concession. It’s now been resolved at the Federal Executive Council level,” Kuku announced. “What that means is that it provides better investor confidence for those looking to drive PPP projects, ensuring future contracts are fair to both the government and the private sector.”

Addressing the core theme of the convention—the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM)—the FAAN Chief Executive urged African airport managers to balance socio-economic development obligations with strict commercial viability.

In Nigeria, while air travel is recognised as the safest mode of transit, it remains an elite commodity. Out of a population of over 220 million people, Nigeria records roughly 17 million passenger movements annually—representing less than 10 percent market penetration.