Confusion continues to trail the proposed construction of a second runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, amid growing uncertainty over when or if the long-delayed project will be realised.
Debate around the runway intensified in 2025 after the estimated cost of the project surged to N532bn. However, concerns over the federal government’s commitment deepened after the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development allocated just N10m for the project in the 2026 budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu.
The second runway project was first unveiled in April 2009 under the administration of then Aviation Minister, Babatunde Omotoba, with an initial estimated cost of N64bn. The proposed 4.5-kilometre runway was designed to accommodate some of the world’s largest commercial aircraft, including the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777. Plans also included a 75-metre-wide runway equipped with Category III airfield lighting.
Several years later, under former Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika, the N64bn contract was eventually awarded to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC). By 2023, the project cost had climbed to N90bn.
In 2024, the estimate rose sharply again when the current Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, disclosed that CCECC had proposed a revised contract sum of N532bn, citing inflation and foreign exchange volatility. Keyamo opposed the increase, which would have added N442bn to the original cost, describing it as excessive.
Reacting to concerns over the N10m budgetary provision, Keyamo on Monday explained that allocations in the federal budget do not always reflect the true cost of large-scale infrastructure projects. According to him, token sums are often inserted to keep projects active within the budget cycle while alternative funding arrangements are explored.
“I have not looked at it, but what they do in the budgetary sequence is that even if a project is N40bn I’m not saying it is N40bn, I am just giving an example and we don’t have the money to do it yet, to keep that budget alive for that cycle, we just allocate an amount to it,” Keyamo said.
“It doesn’t mean that the money you see there is a reflection of the actual cost. The civil servants do it that way.”
The minister further revealed that he and President Tinubu had agreed to pursue funding for the second runway outside the traditional budgetary framework.
“The Federal Government has resolved on an alternative source of income, and we have gone very far with that. We will reveal it very soon. We will do the second runway; we will deliver it,” Keyamo assured.
Meanwhile, the minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Tunde Moshood, declined to provide additional details, noting that the budgeting process is handled by civil servants and the ministry’s permanent secretary.
