Unions suspend nationwide protest as ministry orders probe into NAMA’s unremitted NiMet revenues

A looming crisis which could have paralysed Nigeria’s aviation sector was averted on Tuesday after the joint labour unions of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) suspended a planned nationwide protest.

The protest, which was scheduled to begin on July 1st, was shelved following an emergency intervention by the Federal Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development and NiMet management.

The industrial action, organised by the NiMet Joint Action Committee (NJAC), was aimed at forcing a resolution over instability regarding staff welfare and a long-standing dispute over accumulated revenue backlogs.

At the centre of the friction is the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), which was accused of failing to remit NiMet’s legally mandated share of aviation revenues.

According to an internal union circular obtained by BusinessDay, the emergency meeting exposed gaps in how revenues are collected, shared, and remitted among the country’s critical aviation parastatals.

To de-escalate the situation, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Aviation issued a directive aimed directly at NAMA’s leadership:

The ministerial directive implies that NAMA must submit its comprehensive statements of account immediately. This fiscal audit is designed to verify or validate NAMA’s persistent claims that it lacks the liquidity to remit the backlogged revenue shares owed to NiMet under the industry’s established sharing formula.

Beyond the immediate audit of NAMA, the ministry has put two temporary fixes in place to keep the peace:

Automated Monthly Revenue Sharing: The Ministry has instituted an immediate mechanism ensuring that all federally collected aviation revenues are shared transparently among agencies on a strict monthly basis going forward.

A Unified Stakeholder Framework: An expansive meeting of all relevant aviation stakeholders has been formalised to build a new legal and operational framework. The goal is to decisively resolve the accumulated backlog and prevent future inter-agency withholding of funds.

While the protest has been suspended, the union leadership made it clear that this is not a retreat, but a strategic pause to allow the government to verify NAMA’s books.

“The leadership of our great Union hereby suspended the proposed nationwide peaceful protest,” the NJAC statement read. “This is to allow the Permanent Secretary to ascertain if truly NAMA didn’t have anything through their statements of Account and to get back to the union.”