Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has stated that the removal of taxes in the aviation sector cannot be decided by one individual, noting that such policies are subject to collective government approval and legislative review.
He said this at an event in Abuja on Monday, celebrating 100 years of aviation in Nigeria. The minister clarified that despite industry pressure over multiple taxation, tax removal lies beyond the jurisdiction of the aviation ministry alone. He stressed that statutory levies require input from key institutions, including the Ministry of Finance, tax authorities, and the National Assembly.
“You can see that I am not the owner of Nigeria. There’s a Ministry of Finance. There’s a tax authority. The Minister of Aviation cannot wake up overnight and say, I’m removing taxes. It’s a whole ecosystem, a whole government system that will meet on that. Some of these things are statutory; they are laws already.”
He explained that the legislature must also deliberate on tax adjustments before they can be enforced. According to him, President Bola Tinubu has already shown commitment to addressing tax burdens in the industry.
The National Assembly will be involved too, to remove some of these from the laws. But let me tell you, Mr President himself is so proactive. For the laws that are not taking place, for example, the tax law that was about to take place, he immediately excluded aviation, the four percent tax. The money could have been higher.”
Keyamo added that a review process is now in motion to tackle multiple taxation affecting airline operations.
“The President has set up a team to review all of these multiple taxations. And so we are getting the ball rolling.”
He maintained that the minister alone cannot abolish statutory taxes. “I, as aviation minister, cannot stand up overnight and remove this tax, because I’m not the owner of Nigeria. I’m not the owner. It’s the federal government that owns this money. So we are getting there.”
Beyond taxation, Keyamo highlighted the infrastructure deficit as the biggest challenge facing Nigeria’s aviation growth. He said the country must develop fully functional airport hubs capable of handling seamless international transit.
“The big elephant in the room is infrastructure. We need to convert our major gateways to proper hubs where you can fly in, go through a process of processing you without even entering the country, into another wing, and then you board again and fly out. Now, we have airlines that have the capacity. They are already doing international routes.”
He argued that Nigerian airlines like Air Peace could operate more profitable, long-haul connecting routes if modern hub systems were in place.
“So, for instance, there’s no reason why Airpeace cannot take you from London. If you are coming to Nigeria, or if you are a resident in London, you can buy an Airpeace ticket going to South Africa. And so they lift you from London, they bring you to Nigeria. You don’t need to come to Lagos. We need that facility to process you into the next wing, and you board the same Airpeace, you are connecting to South Africa.”
He added that domestic carriers rely heavily on such infrastructure to expand their operations. “So we need, first of all, infrastructure to develop proper hubs to assist our airline. Because they also need the hubs. Without those infrastructures, they cannot grow in a way to fly.”
Keyamo listed finance and aircraft leasing access as the second major obstacle to airline growth. “The second one is to ensure that we empower the airlines to have access to credits, access to financing, and access to lease aircraft. These are the two major problems. If not, the problem is not in the traffic.”
Despite current challenges, he maintained that market capacity, population, and location are in Nigeria’s favour. The new tax reform law, recently passed as part of the federal government’s fiscal restructuring, has consolidated several tax statutes into a unified framework aimed at widening revenue generation and reducing administrative overlap.
However, the aviation industry has expressed concern over the removal of certain long-standing exemptions, including duties on aircraft parts and components, VAT on tickets, and levies affecting airline operations.
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased further in November 2025, dropping to 14.45 per cent year on year, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The report, published on the NBS website on Monday, showed that while consumer prices continued to rise every month, annual inflation moderated significantly under the new base year.
According to the NBS, the Consumer Price Index increased to 130.5 points in November 2025 from 128.9 points in October, representing a 1.6-point rise month on month.
“The Consumer Price Index rose to 130.5 in November 2025, reflecting a 1.6-point increase from the preceding month (128.9),” the bureau stated.
However, the headline inflation rate declined to 14.45 per cent year on year, compared with 16.05 per cent recorded in October 2025.
“In November 2025, the Headline inflation rate eased to 14.45 per cent relative to the October 2025 headline inflation rate of 16.05 per cent.
“Looking at the movement, the November 2025 Headline inflation rate showed a decrease of 1.6 per cent compared to the October 2025 Headline inflation rate,” the report added.
Naija News understands that on a month-on-month basis, headline inflation stood at 1.22 per cent in November, higher than the 0.93 per cent recorded in October, indicating that average prices increased at a faster pace during the month despite the moderation in annual inflation.
The NBS noted that headline inflation in November 2025 was 20.15 percentage points lower than the 34.60 per cent recorded in November 2024, largely reflecting the impact of the rebasing exercise, with the new base year set at 2024 instead of 2009.
Data from the report showed that the average CPI for the twelve months ending November 2025 rose by 20.41 per cent compared with the average of the preceding twelve months, a sharp slowdown from the 32.77 per cent recorded in November 2024.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages remained the largest contributor to headline inflation on a year-on-year basis, accounting for 5.78 percentage points. This was followed by restaurants and accommodation services at 1.87 percentage points and transport at 1.54 percentage points.
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels contributed 1.22 percentage points, while education services and health accounted for 0.90 and 0.88 percentage points, respectively.
At the month-on-month level, food and non-alcoholic beverages also drove price increases, contributing 0.49 percentage points, followed by restaurants and accommodation services at 0.16 percentage points and transport at 0.13 percentage points.
A breakdown by location showed that urban inflation stood at 13.61 per cent year on year in November 2025, a decline of 23.49 percentage points from the 37.10 per cent recorded in November 2024.
On a month-on-month basis, urban inflation slowed to 0.95 per cent from 1.14 per cent in October, while the twelve-month average urban inflation rate eased to 20.80 per cent.
In contrast, rural inflation was higher at 15.15 per cent year on year in November, although this was still 17.12 percentage points lower than the 32.27 per cent recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
Month-on-month rural inflation, however, accelerated sharply to 1.88 per cent from 0.45 per cent in October, reflecting stronger price pressures in rural areas during the month.
Food inflation also moderated significantly on an annual basis. The NBS reported that food inflation stood at 11.08 per cent year on year in November 2025, down by 28.85 percentage points from the 39.93 per cent recorded in November 2024.
However, month-on-month food inflation rose to 1.13 per cent from a contraction of 0.37 per cent in October.
The increase was driven by higher prices of items such as dried tomatoes, cassava tubers, shelled periwinkle, ground pepper, eggs, crayfish, egusi, oxtail and fresh onions.
The average annual food inflation rate for the twelve months ending November 2025 was 19.68 per cent, compared with 38.67 per cent in the same period of 2024.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile agricultural produce and energy prices, stood at 18.04 per cent year on year in November 2025, down from 28.75 per cent in November 2024.
On a month-on-month basis, core inflation eased slightly to 1.28 per cent from 1.42 per cent in October, while the twelve-month average core inflation rate fell to 20.76 per cent.
Other sub-indices showed that farm produce inflation rose to 0.79 per cent in November from zero per cent in October, while energy inflation increased to 1.08 per cent from 0.50 per cent.
Services inflation rose to 1.82 per cent from 1.54 per cent, and goods inflation increased to 0.79 per cent from 0.63 per cent in the previous month.
At the state level, Rivers recorded the highest year-on-year all-items inflation rate at 17.78 per cent, followed by Ogun at 17.65 per cent and Ekiti at 16.77 per cent.
Plateau recorded the lowest year-on-year inflation rate at 9.13 per cent, alongside Kebbi at 10.32 per cent and Katsina at 10.60 per cent.
On a month-on-month basis, Bayelsa recorded the highest increase at 6.58 per cent, followed by Gombe at 5.11 per cent and Edo at 4.45 per cent, while Plateau, Delta and Kaduna recorded declines.
Food inflation data showed that Kogi recorded the highest year-on-year increase at 17.83 per cent, followed by Ogun at 16.52 per cent and Rivers at 16.11 per cent.
Imo, Katsina and Akwa Ibom recorded the slowest rise in food prices on a year-on-year basis. Month-on-month food inflation was highest in Yobe at 9.52 per cent, followed by Katsina at 6.61 per cent and Ondo at 6.04 per cent, while Imo, Nasarawa and Enugu recorded declines.
The NBS cautioned that interstate comparisons should be interpreted carefully, noting that CPI weights differ across states based on consumption patterns, which could make direct comparisons of inflation baskets misleading.
Barring any last-minute change, MRS and other partners of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery are set to begin selling petrol at N739 per litre.
This comes two days after the refinery slashed its petrol gantry price from N828 to N699 per litre. Speaking at a press briefing at the Lekki refinery on Sunday, the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said he was aware that despite lower gantry prices, some filling stations often choose to keep pump prices high, thereby sabotaging his efforts.
According to him, MRS would commence the sale of petrol at N739 per litre from Tuesday, while other partners would follow. Dangote alleged that some officials had met with certain marketers and encouraged them to keep prices high in order to frustrate the price reduction, stressing that he would fight to enforce the new price regime.
“I was told that the marketers have met with (some officials) and were told to make sure that the price is maintained high. But this price we are going to introduce, we are going to start with MRS stations most likely on Tuesday in Lagos; that N970 per litre, you won’t see it again. We have also asked members of IPMAN to come now.
We have asked anybody who can buy 10 trucks to come and buy 10 trucks at N699.
“We are going to use whatever resources that we have to make sure that we crash the price down. We will get these sales; maybe it will take us a week to 10 days. But first of all, within a week to 10 days, we will be able to deliver. For this December and January, we don’t want people to sell petrol for more than N740 nationwide. Those who want to keep the price to sabotage the government, we will fight as much as we can to make sure that these prices are down. That’s not the price. If you have money to come and buy, you can pick up petrol at N699,” he said.
Dangote said transporting petrol from the refinery costs no more than N15 per litre, questioning why pump prices would rise as high as N900 per litre. He also accused the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority of issuing 47 import licences to bring in more than seven billion litres of petrol in the first quarter of 2026, a move he said was killing local investments.
“Freight within Lagos is N10 or N15, maximum. So if it’s N10 to N15, everything is going to cost you N715. Why do you want to sell at N900? People should get the real price. I cannot come now and take the hit. Did we make money? No, we didn’t make money. But as we speak now, even our tanks are full because the NMDPRA has issued reckless licences. And we have to now go and complain to the government.
“They normally issue licenses in the middle of the month. So, they are now ready to issue licences for about 7.5 billion litres for the first quarter of 2026, despite the fact that we have guaranteed to supply enough quantity.
“If you are talking about monopoly, did we stop anybody? They issued 47 licenses. Let those people come and put up a refinery here, or let them go and buy even NNPC’s and operate them. If it’s profitable, they should go and do that now. NNPC was the only business that was bringing in fuel before.
“Now, we are the only one and one of the few modular refineries that are producing. Those modular refineries, I can tell you for nothing that they are almost on the verge of collapse. None of them is making a dime,” he added.
The billionaire businessman assured Nigerians that the N739 per litre price would be enforced, beginning with MRS stations on Tuesday. “Starting from Tuesday, MRS will start selling petrol at N739/litre. Definitely, we will enforce that low price. We will make sure that it’s implemented. If you have your truck, you can come here and buy it. We are selling at N699. The N699 includes the percentage of NMDPRA. So what actually comes out to us is about N389 or so,” he stated.
Contacted for his reaction, the NMDPRA spokesman, George Ene-Ita, said, “For now, no comment.”
The Nigerian Naira displayed a mixed performance against the US Dollar on Friday, December 12, 2025. While the official window of the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM) maintained a familiar trading band, the parallel market witnessed a marginal appreciation for the Naira, reducing the market’s premium slightly.
Trading activities in the official NFEM, which includes the Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) Window, indicated a slight movement in the benchmark rate compared to the previous day’s close.
NFEM Closing Rate (December 12): ₦1,449.38 per US Dollar (Based on early morning data and previous day’s trends).
NFEM Highest Intraday Rate: The dollar was traded at a high of approximately ₦1,452.50.
NFEM Lowest Intraday Rate: The Naira touched its strongest point for the day at about ₦1,449.38.
The relatively tight band in the official market reflects the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) continued intervention efforts and liquidity management strategies aimed at fostering stability for importers and formal businesses.
Parallel Market (Black Market) Rate
In the unofficial parallel market, widely used for cash transactions and personal transfers, the Naira showed a minor gain, reversing a recent weakening trend.
Parallel Market Buying Rate: ₦1,475.00 per US Dollar
Parallel Market Selling Rate: ₦1,485.00 per US Dollar
This parallel market range of ₦1,475 – ₦1,485 indicates a premium of approximately ₦25.62 to ₦35.62 when compared to the official NFEM closing rate of ₦1,449.38.
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