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The Ministerial Task Force has uncovered wealthy elites using private jets for illegal charters, with many flights marked by opaque passenger manifesting that shields identities.
Investigators also found a large number of these jets are foreign-registered aircraft, evading close scrutiny from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
The revelations prompted Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo to inaugurate an 8-man committee on June 27, 2024, to tackle abuses in Private Non-Commercial Flight (PNCF) operations.
Vice Chairman of the committee, Captain Roland Iyayi, told NigerianFLIGHTDECK that the three-month assignment is designed to stamp out illegal charters and enforce safe operating practices.
Opaque Passenger Lists
In its preliminary findings, the committee highlighted major loopholes, including opaque passenger manifesting and conflicting regulatory provisions. Iyayi said several operators deliberately fail to meet conditions attached to their PNCF certificates, while NCAA enforcement remains weak.
Opaque manifesting, he explained, involves the concealment of passenger identities from ground staff, security, and even airline operational teams. Details such as names, gender, and travel history are replaced with fictitious or anonymized data. Some wealthy elites may not even know their details are not on the passenger manifest.
“You have the names of all passengers on a flight, including their gender. In some cases, you must indicate whether they are children or adults. However, some operators use fictitious names and data to obscure the true identity of passengers. This can be dangerous, particularly in the event of an attack, as it becomes difficult to identify who was on that flight, except for the crew members,” Iyayi warned.
Regulatory Loopholes
Iyayi further noted that conflicting NCAA rules allow PNCF holders to subvert the system by operating under an Air Operator Certificate (AOC) or using both licenses interchangeably.
“What they are trying to do is to use the PNCF to conduct commercial flights through the back door,” he said. “If you have a PNCF, there is no need to use an AOC. If you have an AOC, you don’t need a PNCF. The lack of clear regulations allows this conflict to continue.”
Rising Fleet of the Wealthy Elites
The committee report revealed a dramatic surge in private jet ownership. In 2005, only 44 private business aircraft operated in Nigeria. By 2024, the figure had risen to 157 private business jets a staggering 357% increase in two decades. Currently, there are 62 PNCF licenses in force.
While the committee’s findings remain preliminary, Iyayi stressed that deeper investigations will continue, with further reports to the NCAA expected.
The spotlight now falls squarely on wealthy elites and foreign-registered aircraft who, through regulatory grey zones, fuel the booming but illegal charter market.
Wealthy elites fingered in this massive act of economic sabotage provides another inkling why this has been difficult to curtail over the years.
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