Former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode has jumped to the defence of former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the 2004 liquidation of Nigeria Airways, insisting the carrier was already dead on arrival when Obasanjo returned to power in 1999.
Speaking out on his X account on Thursday, October 15, 2026, according to Punch Newspapers, Fani-Kayode was responding to Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo, who had dragged former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over the airline's collapse and the years of unpaid pensions that followed.
And Fani-Kayode did not mince words. His message was simple: blame the rot on the two decades of mismanagement between 1979 and 1999, not on the man who finally pulled the plug.
How Nigeria Airways Went From Pride to Ruin
Let us talk facts, because facts are what Tunde serves. When Obasanjo left office as military Head of State in 1979, Nigeria Airways was flying high. The airline had 32 functional aircraft, experienced pilots and crew, a first-class management team, and an accountable board of directors. Fani-Kayode called it the pride of the nation.
Then came twenty years of decay. By the time Obasanjo returned as civilian president in 1999, the picture was shameful.
By the time Obasanjo came back to power in 1999, 20 years later, there was only one plane left and it was not functional, Fani-Kayode wrote. The rest had vanished together with virtually all of the company's assets.
Vanished. Thirty-one aircraft, gone. That is not an Obasanjo problem. That is a Nigerian elite problem, and we all know it. Successive management teams and boards, Fani-Kayode said, ran the airline into the ground through corruption and mismanagement between 1979 and 1999.
Why Obasanjo Liquidated the Airline in 2004
Fani-Kayode, who served as Aviation Minister in 2006, explained that the liquidation followed chronic insolvency, operational collapse, and failed attempts to revive the carrier, including privatisation advice from the International Finance Corporation, which later withdrew.
In fairness to President Obasanjo, the Nigeria Airways mess, as you have described it, was established before he came back to power in 1999, he wrote. And it was indeed a mess but it was not of Obasanjo's making! He met it there after he was sworn in and what he found broke his heart.
The former minister said the Obasanjo administration was right to stop pumping public funds into a corpse.
This is why Obasanjo liquidated it in 2004 and I believe that he had no choice, Fani-Kayode said. There was nothing left to save even though it was a painful decision given the fact that he was one of those that had done so much for that company when he was Military Head of State.
That is the part that stings. The same man who built the airline into an African giant had to sign its death certificate because others had stripped it bare. If that does not tell you where our real problems lie, nothing will. As we argued in