Gabriel Atumeyi, on this piece, explains how Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Festus Keyamo, saved the federal authorities from a multibillion naira judgment debt, restored a dormant income stream for the aviation sector.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN), has once more demonstrated the college for which he’s most reputed: an intuition for figuring out and resolving an issue that has confounded successive administrations
On October 20, 2026, Keyamo signed a landmark settlement in Abuja between the Federal Government and Bi-Courtney Limited, drawing to an in depth a dispute that had festered for the higher a part of twenty years, for the reason that concession of the Murtala Muhammed Airport II terminal was first awarded in 2003 and litigated by means of the courts for the close to entirety of the intervening years.
This adopted months of negotiations with the administration of Bi-Courtney Limited for what would later be described by its Chairman, Chief Wale Babalakin (SAN), as a very good deal that might encourage others to at all times discover various battle decision mechanisms with the federal government.
Every minister who inherited that file confronted the identical fork within the highway. One possibility was to maintain preventing it out in court docket. While it appears secure and acquainted —simply temporary counsel, approve the cash, and wait to see the way it all performed out. It was additionally the trail that had yielded, over 20 years, nothing however authorized payments, adjournments, a judgment debt compounding with each season, and income losses accrued by the federal authorities.
The different path was negotiation. It was riskier and fewer conspicuous, with no assure of success. It meant a minister would have to sit down with a person who had already received in court docket and persuade him to quit a part of that victory in return for one thing he might truly use.
Keyamo selected the second alternative. In the tip, it was a win-win scenario for each events.
Bi-Courtney relinquished billions of naira of the Supreme Court judgment debt and its curiosity declare, and in return obtained certainty, restored rights, room to increase its apron and permission to transfer regional African flights to MMA2 to the extent of capability. FAAN waived traditionally accrued concession charges predating the settlement, and in return recovered a income stream dormant since 2003.
The General Aviation Terminal was confirmed as Federal Government property, operated by FAAN. The concessionaire resumed fee of concession charges. Government extinguished a 9 determine judgment debt, confirmed possession of a strategic asset and reopened a income line that twenty years of litigation had saved shut. Neither occasion walked away with the whole lot. However, each walked away with one thing value having.
Keyamo performed it himself. He didn’t retain exterior service like others would have carried out, didn’t paper a retainer, didn’t agree a hit price, and didn’t consign the temporary to a silk with ties to his political circle. He led the negotiation alongside his workforce on the Ministry, saved the judgment debt, restarted the income stream, and demonstrated that authorities can resolve advanced business disputes with out changing them right into a jobs programme for the authorized career.
For a Senior Advocate transplanted into public workplace, the temptation is to regard a dispute of this magnitude as a possibility to earn cash. Which is a well-recognized tendency on this nation in recent times, and it has value us dearly.
Keyamo once more received the hearts of many Nigerians along with his loyalty to President Bola Tinubu and his present of patriotism to the nation. Such qualities are uncommon amongst public officers in as we speak’s Nigeria.
What Babalakin stated on the signing provides the decision its last weight. The man who had received in court docket, and who had each authorized entitlement to implement his judgment, selected as an alternative to give up it for certainty, and he defined why. The decision, he stated, would encourage those that really feel daunted once they have points with authorities that there’s a attainable decision.
That sentence deserves to be learn twice. It is the concessionaire, not the minister, making the case that predictability of decision is itself an financial asset, that traders watch how a authorities behaves when it’s owed cash, and draw their conclusions. He spoke of finishing deserted buildings that had turn out to be an eyesore, of making effectively paying jobs, of not disappointing the nation. This is what a settlement appears like when each events intend to honour it.
After the settlement was reached, Babalakin made statements relating to job creation. He explicitly acknowledged that the settlement would “create well paying jobs” and “unlock investment”. He additionally talked about that the venture would create “thousands of direct and indirect jobs” in fields reminiscent of development, civil engineering, hospitality, facility administration, and provide chain logistics.
-Atumeyi writes from Lagos.
