The figure haunts every economic discussion in Abuja: one trillion dollars. President Bola Tinubu has made it the benchmark of his administration’s success—the threshold at which Nigeria would finally join the ranks of the world’s major economies. It is audacious. It is necessary. And, as things stand, it is unachievable.
Not because Nigeria lacks resources, entrepreneurs, or demographic dynamism. The country possesses all three in abundance. The impediment is more prosaic: the physical infrastructure requiresired to connect Nigerian producers to global markets remains woefully inadequate. And nowhere is this failure more consequential—or more fixable—than in aviation.
For too long, Nigeria has treated airports as transport facilities rather than what they truly are: economic infrastructure. Roads are understood as trade enablers; ports as engines of commerce; power as the lifeblood of industry. Aviation, by contrast, has been relegated to the margins of development policy—acknowledged in passing, but rarely treated as strategic.
This post was originally published on this site.
