BY
BRIGHT ESEOSA ENORENSEEGHE (CORRESPONDING AUTHOR) AND OSAZEE DAVID EGBENUSI
Abstract
In Nigeria, air transport was a late comer to the scene. It started as a purely military operation with the landing of a British Royal Air Force aircraft on a polo field in Maiduguri; it gradually assumed the character of a civilian operation in the decades that followed. Aviation was not deliberately introduced, and by the time it came, it was one of the war-time operations of the British. At the time civil aviation was witnessing some development in 1936, the British had barely twenty four years to Nigeria’s independence. Air transport was a transport system for the elite and wealthy businessmen; and was not suitable for the carriage of goods and minerals from the hinterland to the coast like the railways. From its very beginning therefore, air transport served as an exclusive preserve of the few and it can be safely said that it was not used to exploit Africa’s mineral resources. It is against this background that this paper discusses the historical development of the aviation sector in Nigeria; showing that although this sector has been growing slowly but steadily since the colonial days and today, nearly all the cities with airports are commercial nerve centres, the sector could do much more if properly organised and its potential harnessed.