The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency has appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation to demand a 90 per cent share of aviation height clearance fees and a 56 per cent allocation of the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge — demands that, if granted, would fundamentally restructure the financial architecture of Nigeria's aviation sector and trigger a significant reduction in funding for every other aviation agency currently receiving TSC revenue.
NAMA's appearance is part of the ongoing public hearing on a proposed amendment to the statutory revenue-sharing formula for aviation agencies — a hearing that has drawn interventions from across the sector as agencies, unions, airlines, and operators all seek to shape an outcome reflecting their respective institutional interests.
NAMA's Justification
NAMA argued its current TSC allocation does not adequately reflect the scale and criticality of its operational responsibilities. The agency manages Nigeria's entire airspace — operating air traffic control, maintaining navigation infrastructure, designing instrument flight procedures, conducting aeronautical surveys, and providing technical obstacle assessments essential to the safe operation of every flight in Nigerian airspace. NAMA's position is that these functions, which form the operational foundation on which all other aviation activity depends, should command a correspondingly larger share of the aviation sector's revenue streams.
On aviation height clearance fees — charges paid by developers of tall structures assessed for their impact on flight paths and navigation — NAMA argued the agency performs the technical work and should therefore retain 90 per cent of fee revenue rather than the current significantly smaller share.
The Inter-Agency Confrontation
NAMA's demands directly threaten the funding positions of every other agency currently drawing from the TSC pool — including the NCAA, NiMet, and the NSIB. The NCAA has signalled its opposition, with DGCA Capt. Chris Najomo arguing publicly that NAMA has 16 independent income sources that the NCAA does not have access to, making the case that NAMA's financial position relative to the NCAA is already more advantaged than the raw TSC allocation figures suggest. The National Assembly will need to weigh these competing claims in an environment where the total TSC pool is fixed — meaning any increase in NAMA's share is a direct reduction in every other agency's share.
