The first thing you feel when you land in Nigeria is about to change
The first thing you feel when you land in a country is not its culture, not its cuisine, not its people. It is its airport. That threshold, the space between
- By Bunmi Onabanjo-Kuku
The first thing you feel when you land in a country is not its culture, not its cuisine, not its people. It is its airport. That threshold, the space between the jet bridge and the city beyond, tells you everything a nation believes about itself and about you, its guest. It speaks before anyone opens their mouth. It sets the temperature of expectation. And for decades, the temperature at Murtala Muhammed International Airport has not reflected the Nigeria that lives in the hearts of the nearly four million passengers who pass through its doors every year.
That is the honest place from which I must begin. Not with statistics, not with project timelines, but with the truth that anyone who has traveled through Lagos knows in their bones: we have asked too much patience from too many people for too long. The luggage hauled up escalators that were never designed for that burden. The congestion that greets you before you have even exhaled from your flight. The touting, the disorder, the sense that a great African city is being welcomed and farewelled in a space that does not honor it. I have heard these complaints in boardrooms and in the direct messages of frustrated passengers who simply wanted someone in authority to acknowledge what they already knew.
I acknowledge it. And now, we are doing something about it.
In February 2026, we shut Terminal 1 down completely. Not in stages designed to soften the optics. Not with one section open while another is quietly patched. We closed it, because you cannot rebuild a foundation while pretending the house above it is still functional. Terminal 1 is a fifty-year-old structure that has absorbed the weight of Nigeria’s aviation history, and it deserved more than cosmetic repair. Our structural engineers confirmed what we had hoped: the concrete skeleton remains sound. The bones of the building are good. But everything else, every wire, every pipe, every mechanical and electrical system that determines how light flows, how air circulates, how passengers are processed and protected, had aged beyond what renovation alone could address. So, we are stripping it all out and starting again, from the inside out.
This is a N712 billion investment, and I want to resist the temptation to let that number do all the talking, because large figures have a way of creating distance rather than understanding. What that investment means, in practical and human terms, is that the next passenger who arrives at Murtala Muhammed International Airport will move through a terminal that was designed around them. Not around the constraints of a different era, not around the compromises of decades of deferred maintenance, but around the actual experience of a human being in motion, with luggage and anxiety and expectations and a story that brought them here.
The layout of Terminal 1 is being reimagined from first principles. From the moment a passenger enters the airport environment to the moment they step onto the plane, every transition, every processing point, every space in between is being reconsidered. New baggage handling systems will replace the ones that have frustrated travelers for years. Biometric screening and access controls will address the security lapses and the touting that passengers have raised with us repeatedly and rightly. Integrated command centers will give our operations teams the visibility they need to manage the terminal in real time. The facade of the building will also change, not into something generic or borrowed, but into something that speaks unmistakably of Nigeria, modern and proud and deliberate.
I want to be clear that this project does not begin and end with Terminal 1. The transformation of Murtala Muhammed International Airport is a comprehensive undertaking, and Terminal 2 is very much part of it. We are expanding Terminal 2 to accommodate increased international traffic, including widebody aircraft that Lagos, as West Africa’s commercial and financial capital, has every right to receive. Boarding bridge zones are being extended, apron space expanded, and hangars relocated to create room for the level of operation this airport should be running at.
And then there is the issue of access, which I want to address directly because it is one of the most frequent and legitimate frustrations I encounter. If you have arrived through Terminal 2 in recent years, you will know what I mean. You land, you come in at the lower level, and you are directed to take escalators upward with your luggage, into a space that was simply not designed to handle the volumes we now see. That design flaw has caused real inconvenience and real pressure on our infrastructure. We are fixing it. New entry and exit points are being constructed so that passengers arrive at grade level, with proper space to move, without the bottlenecks that have defined the experience for too long. The central square in front of the terminals is being redesigned entirely, into a landscaped, welcoming gateway that will serve as a genuine first impression of Lagos. More green space. More room. A sense of arrival that feels intentional rather than accidental.
I am also aware that closing Terminal 1 raised immediate and reasonable questions about operational continuity. Lagos cannot afford to step back from its role as Nigeria’s primary international gateway, not even temporarily. So before we closed Terminal 1, we built. To the west of Terminal 2, on the same access corridor as our international operations, we constructed a temporary terminal spanning approximately 8,000 square meters. It is capable of handling up to 1,500 passengers during peak hours. Departures are managed from this facility while arrivals continue through Terminal 2, creating a split terminal system that has actually improved flow and reduced the congestion points that plagued the previous arrangement. Air France, KLM, Ethiopian Airlines, and Middle East Airlines are currently operating their departures from this terminal. It is not a luxury facility, and it was never intended to be. But it is equipped with check-in counters, immigration and security screening areas, boarding gates, waiting lounges, prayer rooms, and charging stations. It is dignified. It is functional. And it is proof that with proper planning, we can maintain service while we build something better behind it.
Read Also: Nigeria targets $2tr halal meat market
The full reconstruction of Terminal 1 is a twenty-two month commitment, and the clock is running. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Minister Festus Keyamo have made clear that this is a national priority, not in the rhetorical sense that phrase is often used, but in the concrete sense of political will, funding, and accountability. That backing matters. Projects of this scale do not survive without it.
I will not promise that the next twenty-two months will be without friction. Transformation at this scale never is. But what I will say is that every decision being made on this project, every design choice, every technology being installed, every system being replaced, is being made with the passenger in mind. Not the passenger as an abstraction, but as a person who has traveled far, who carries something precious with them, and who deserves to feel that Nigeria was ready for them.
Four million passengers move through this airport every year. Each one of them carries an impression of this country home with them, to London, to Dubai, to New York, to Accra, to Beijing. For too long, that impression has not reflected what Nigeria truly is or what it is genuinely capable of. The renovation of Murtala Muhammed International Airport is our commitment to changing that, one concrete wall, one biometric gate, one carefully considered passenger journey at a time.
The first thing you feel when you land in Nigeria is about to change. And this time, we mean it.
Bunmi Onabanjo-Kuku is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). She oversees the management and development of all federally designated airports across Nigeria and leads the ongoing transformation of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. She writes in her official capacity.
