The African Democratic Congress has criticised the Bola Tinubu-led administration over its plan to spend more than N712bn on renovating the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, described the expenditure as extravagant and a misplaced priority.
President Bola Tinubu approved N712.3bn for the upgrade of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, under the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund.
Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, announced the approval after the Federal Executive Council meeting held in Abuja on Thursday.
Keyamo said this would be the first major rehabilitation of the airport’s old terminal since its construction.
In its reaction, the ADC questioned whether the renovation project and its cost were approved by the National Assembly, labelling the spending as reckless and insensitive.
ADC stated, “The African Democratic Congress strongly condemns the outrageous N712bn airport renovation project announced by the Tinubu administration as another brazen act of fiscal recklessness and official insensitivity, which further confirms how far this APC government is removed from the reality of the suffering people of Nigeria.
“It is hard to understand how expending N712bn into renovating an airport that already received significant upgrades in recent years makes fiscal sense in a country where public universities wallow in chronic austerity, where basic medical care, has become a luxury that only the rich can afford, where millions of Nigerians have been thrown into poverty as a result of government’s ill-conceived policies.
“What the aviation sector needs is not another gold-plated terminal, but proper maintenance, enhanced efficiency and the expansion of regional airports to boost real connectivity across Nigeria.
“Just for context, the amount of money that is being funnelled into the renovation of one airport, approximately $500m, is the same total amount that was spent to build four new airports in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt in 2014 via a Chinese loan that is yet to be repaid.
“This same Murtala Muhammed Airport had a new international terminal that was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari in March 2022.”
According to media reports at the time, the facility was built on a landmass of approximately 56,000 square metres, with 66 check-in counters and the capacity to process 14 million passengers annually.
The party noted that the airport is reportedly fitted with a censored conveyor belt, seven jet bridges, ten advanced cooling systems, heat extraction units in the baggage hall, spacious duty-free areas and banks, children’s recreational zones, and a 22-room hotel for stopovers, among other features.
The ADC stressed that while the facility was originally built to handle 14 million passengers annually, available data shows it only processed 6.5 million passengers in 2024, less than half of its capacity.
It continued, “We, therefore, wonder if it is this same airport that is now scheduled for renovation or another one. The inescapable conclusion is either that the previous APC government had lied to Nigerians about what it did with the Lagos Airport, or the current government is about to spend such a huge amount of money on a project that already exists.
“Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that this massive expenditure—approved by the Federal Executive Council on July 31, 2025—has not received any backing from the National Assembly, and it is not in any of the approved budgets.
“Is this now how the government spends close to a trillion naira—without appropriation, without scrutiny, and without the consent of the Nigerian people through their elected representatives?”
The party described the spending on the airport as wasteful and imposing more on the present debt burden of the country.
It noted that the said sum of money could be deployed to attend to other pressing necessities.
It added, “We demand to know: under what constitutional provision is this money being spent? How did we get here, that the government of Nigeria, even in the face of extant accountability laws, can approve expenditure of this magnitude with no public breakdown of costs, no transparent procurement process, and no national debate?
“Let us be clear, N712bn could instead deliver a transformative impact by building over seven fully equipped teaching hospitals, funding free basic education across three geopolitical zones for five years, providing rural electrification to thousands of communities, or rehabilitating thousands of kilometres of federal roads and bridges.
“The ADC calls on all Nigerians to reject this frivolous project. We, therefore, demand its immediate suspension, a full independent audit of the proposed budget, and a redirection of funds toward projects that would directly improve the lives of ordinary citizens, which should be the priority of any government.”
The party warned that reckless spending amid hunger, hardship, and insecurity would widen the trust gap between the government and the people, especially when it struggles to justify its borrowing.
Defending the project, Keyamo said the government was set to rebuild Terminal One of the airport, which faced the long stretch of road leading to it and was inaugurated in 1979 by the Obasanjo-led military regime.
He said that due to years of neglect and because of the traffic over time, the building and facilities at Terminal One became totally decrepit.
“We have been engaged in some patch jobs over the years just to make it a bit presentable. Now, shorn of all the rhetoric, what we simply want to do is to totally strip down that building, including the entire roof (leaving only the carcass), then re-design/reconfigure it and build a brand-new airport for the nation to meet modern, international standards that can also cater for the increased traffic,” he said.
