Nigeria has become the most expensive airspace in Africa – an open-air bazaar where foreign airlines fleece passengers with impunity, while the government of President Bola Tinubu stands idly by. Nigeria today bleeds in the skies, as foreign airlines have turned the nation into their most lucrative cash cow, charging Nigerians the highest fares in Africa while regulators look away. Nigerians now pay, not for travel, but for the privilege of being Nigerian. The scandal is simple: Nigerians pay the world’s highest fares because the Nigerian government lets foreign airlines to gouge prices with impunity. This is not economics; it is extortion, sanctified by government silence and indifference.
Under President Tinubu, a Lagos–London economy ticket routinely sells for ₦2.6 million ($1,786) on British Airways. The same route from Nairobi? $850. Air France charges ₦1.8 million ($1,202) Lagos–Rome, yet a Paris–Rome ticket costs under €200. A Lagos–New York economy seat hovers between $1,700 and $2,900; the price of a year’s school fees. A Lagos–New York seat can wipe out a family’s annual income. A mother flying her child abroad for surgery pays ₦2.6 million for one seat. A student bound for postgraduate study nearly defers because London fares hit £1,500–£2,000, double what peers in Kenya pay.
The excuses are familiar. Blocked funds. Forex scarcity. High operating costs. Yet, the Central Bank has cleared 98 percent of those “trapped” funds, but fares remain stubbornly obscene. Yet the fares remain scandalous. Why? Because foreign airlines discovered they could gouge Nigerians and get away with it. Proof? When Air Peace entered the London route, ticket prices collapsed by 40–60 percent overnight. The same airlines that claimed poverty suddenly rediscovered profitability once competition arrived. Their game was exposed. Competition, not currency, is the real driver. The airlines have been playing Nigerians for fools.
And where are the regulators? The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission—institutions meant to guard the people—have become complicit bystanders. Their silence has handed foreign carriers a license to exploit. This is not mere incompetence; it is betrayal. Instead of standing with its citizens, Tinubu’s government has stood with profiteers. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the FCCPC have abdicated their duties, reduced to rubber stamps, while passengers are skinned alive. Tinubu, who promised reforms, presides over this betrayal in silence. The message is clear: the Nigerian traveler is on his own.
Meanwhile, the people suffer, and ordinary Nigerians bleed. A mother sells her property to fly her sick child abroad. A student defers her postgraduate dreams because an airline priced her out of education. A family planning Christmas at home is quoted £10,000–£15,000 – the equivalent of two years’ rent for a two-week holiday in Lagos. Lufthansa, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways — they fleece Nigerians because they can. And because Tinubu’s government lets them. These are not market forces; they are the wages of complicity and daylight robbery.
Every overpriced ticket is a tax on our helplessness and a receipt of Tinubu’s failure. Every boarding pass is an indictment of Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo. Until this government grows a spine and confronts foreign airlines with fairness, transparency, and competition, Nigerians will continue to pay the highest fares for the same skies, others cross cheaply. History will record not only the greed of foreign airlines, but the cowardice of a government that watched its people suffer and chose silence. The Tinubu government’s refusal to act has turned Nigerians into aviation’s cash cows. Until regulators rediscover their backbone and enforce transparency, competition, and fairness, the fleecing will continue.
