the commebtary logo
place advert thecommentaryng
the commebtary logo

TRENDING

Kuku’s ACI Vice Presidency: What It Means for Nigeria and Africa’s Airport Development

the commentary faviconByIdris Alooma Hours Posted on Categories Aviation

FAAN MD Olubunmi Kuku speaking at a panel at the ACI in Lusaka recently

The election of Olubunmi Kuku, Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), as Vice President of Airports Council International (ACI) – Africa, marks a significant milestone not only for Nigeria’s aviation sector but also for the broader African continent.

Her elevation from Regional Advisor for Africa to a permanent member of the ACI World Governing Board, ratified during the 34th ACI Africa General Assembly in Lusaka, Zambia, cements her role as one of the key voices shaping the future of aviation on the continent.

A New Phase of Leadership for Africa

ACI Africa, representing 56 member states, is a powerful platform for advancing the collective interests of African aviation stakeholders. Through advocacy, policy alignment, and global networking, it seeks to position African airports as enablers of growth and integration. With Kuku as Vice President, Africa gains a pragmatic and visionary leader who has already proven her ability to steer transformation.

The ACI World Governing Board, which she now joins, oversees around 2,100 airports globally across 169 countries. This global exposure enables her to bridge Africa’s unique challenges—such as limited intra-African connectivity, aging infrastructure, and the need for sustainable practices—with international best practices and innovations.

Nigeria at the Forefront

Kuku’s election is particularly significant for Nigeria. As Africa’s largest economy and one of its busiest aviation hubs, Nigeria’s voice in global aviation conversations has not always been fully amplified. Her presence in ACI leadership ensures stronger representation and influence, particularly in advancing policies that support airport modernization, investment attraction, and safety compliance.

You May Also Like:  Marking A Year Of Climate Leadership At NiMet Under Professor Charles Anosike

President Bola Tinubu, congratulating Kuku, emphasized that her election reflects FAAN’s sustained efforts to improve safety, efficiency, and service standards in Nigeria’s airports. The recognition further validates Nigeria’s push to reposition its aviation sector as a driver of national development, tourism, and international trade.

The Challenges Ahead for Africa’s Airports

While the honour is immense, the responsibility is even greater. African airports face critical challenges, including:

Infrastructure Deficit: Many airports require urgent upgrades to meet global standards.

Connectivity Gaps: Despite progress, Africa still has some of the world’s lowest levels of intra-continental air travel.

Sustainability Pressures: As the world pushes for greener aviation, African airports must balance environmental responsibilities with developmental needs.

Regulatory Harmonization: Fragmented policies across different countries hinder the seamless movement of people and goods.

Kuku’s background in aviation and finance positions her to advocate for pragmatic solutions, including public-private partnerships, regional cooperation, and adoption of digital and green technologies.

What It Means for Nigeria and Africa

For Nigeria, her leadership can attract greater international collaboration, technical partnerships, and investment into airport infrastructure. It also elevates FAAN’s visibility as a reform-driven institution under her stewardship.

For Africa, her election represents a chance to consolidate collective efforts toward realizing the African Union’s Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), which seeks to remove barriers to air connectivity. By championing safer, more efficient, and passenger-centric airports, she will also help align Africa’s aviation industry with global best practices.

Looking Ahead

Olubunmi Kuku’s election as Vice President of ACI Africa is more than a personal achievement—it is a strategic win for Nigeria and the continent at large. Her track record of reform, vision for modernization, and commitment to excellence provide a strong foundation for tackling Africa’s aviation challenges.

You May Also Like:  Aircraft Surge as ValueJet Partners with Cally Air to Operate Two CRJ1000 Regional Jets

As she takes on this role, Kuku embodies the promise of a future where African airports are not merely points of transit but hubs of economic transformation, regional integration, and global competitiveness. Her vision, backed by experience and determination, could well define the next chapter in Africa’s aviation growth story.

Indeed, the future of African airports looks more promising. If effectively harnessed, her leadership could help transform airports into catalysts of economic integration, tourism, and continental development. In Kuku’s hands, both Nigeria and Africa’s aviation sectors stand poised for a new era of global competitiveness.

the commentary favicon

The Commentary is your go to platform when you want latest updates on aviation, maritime, business, and other sectors.

Leave a comment

©2025. The Commentary. All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Policy
Terms and Conditions
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Decline
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie name Active

Privacy Policy

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site or place an order. When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address or mailing address.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways: To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs) To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you) To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs) To process transactions Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature To send periodic emails The email address you provide for order processing, will only be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers database only to be accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to?keep the information confidential. After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, social security numbers, financials, etc.) will not be kept on file for more than 60 days.

Do we use cookies?

Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart, understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business. If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders by contacting customer service. Google Analytics We use Google Analytics on our sites for anonymous reporting of site usage and for advertising on the site. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/)

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Registration

The minimum information we need to register you is your name, email address and a password. We will ask you more questions for different services, including sales promotions. Unless we say otherwise, you have to answer all the registration questions. We may also ask some other, voluntary questions during registration for certain services (for example, professional networks) so we can gain a clearer understanding of who you are. This also allows us to personalise services for you. To assist us in our marketing, in addition to the data that you provide to us if you register, we may also obtain data from trusted third parties to help us understand what you might be interested in. This ‘profiling’ information is produced from a variety of sources, including publicly available data (such as the electoral roll) or from sources such as surveys and polls where you have given your permission for your data to be shared. You can choose not to have such data shared with the Guardian from these sources by logging into your account and changing the settings in the privacy section. After you have registered, and with your permission, we may send you emails we think may interest you. Newsletters may be personalised based on what you have been reading on theguardian.com. At any time you can decide not to receive these emails and will be able to ‘unsubscribe’. Logging in using social networking credentials If you log-in to our sites using a Facebook log-in, you are granting permission to Facebook to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth and location which will then be used to form a Guardian identity. You can also use your picture from Facebook as part of your profile. This will also allow us and Facebook to share your, networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. If you remove the Guardian app from your Facebook settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a Google log-in, you grant permission to Google to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth, sex and location which we will then use to form a Guardian identity. You may use your picture from Google as part of your profile. This also allows us to share your networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Google account settings. If you remove the Guardian from your Google settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a twitter log-in, we receive your avatar (the small picture that appears next to your tweets) and twitter username.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Updating your personal information

We offer a ‘My details’ page (also known as Dashboard), where you can update your personal information at any time, and change your marketing preferences. You can get to this page from most pages on the site – simply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
Save settings
Cookies settings