The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has grounded over 60 private jets operating in the country due to alleged non-payment of import duties. Most of the affected aircraft are foreign-registered and operate under the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations. The grounding exercise began on Monday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos, the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) in Abuja, and continued at other airports on Tuesday.
Some of the jets were sealed off at ExecuJet, a free trade zone facility at the Lagos airport operated by Quits Aviation. The jets reportedly belong to Nigerian private individuals operating under the Permit for Non-Commercial Flight (PNCF), which allows aircraft ownership strictly for personal use and not commercial operations.
At the Lagos airport, the MMIA Command of the NCS placed seals on some of the aircraft. The seals bore the warning: “In accordance with section 221 of the NCS Act 2023, unauthorised removal or breakage of this seal attracts a fine of N100 million or 10 years imprisonment or both.”
Since last year, the NCS has been warning of a crackdown on private jet owners over unpaid duties amounting to billions of naira. During Ahmed Ali’s tenure as Comptroller-General, the NCS wrote to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) seeking the grounding of certain foreign-registered jets over import duty claims—a request the NCAA declined, stating that the aircraft did not violate any aviation regulations. In October last year, the NCS again issued a warning targeting over 60 jets owned by prominent Nigerians, threatening grounding over the same import duty issue.
