Nigeria presses Uganda to sign open-skies agreement

KAMPALA — Nigeria has pressed Uganda to join Africa’s single air transport market, warning that Uganda Airlines cannot make the most of West African routes until it signs up to the continent’s open-skies agreement.

The call came at the first Uganda–Nigeria Business Forum and Exhibition, held in Kampala on 9–10 September, which brought together more than 20 Nigerian firms and Ugandan businesses to pursue trade and investment under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Dr Ibrahim Abubakar Kana, permanent secretary in the office of Nigeria’s Secretary to the Government of the Federation and leader of the Nigerian delegation, said Uganda had to sign up to the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM). “Uganda must be a signatory to SAATM,” he said, speaking as a former permanent secretary in Nigeria’s aviation ministry.

Without membership, he said, Uganda Airlines could not pick up and set down passengers along multi-stop West African routes — the fifth-freedom rights that allow a carrier to fly between third countries.

The push was echoed by Uganda Airlines’ own chief. Girma Wake, the Ethiopian aviation veteran appointed interim chief executive in February, described airlines as bridges between societies and urged African states to open their skies.

Ambassador Richard Kabonero, who leads economic and commercial diplomacy at Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said an Entebbe–Accra service would launch next month, and that SAATM membership would give Uganda the fifth-freedom rights to carry passengers between other African cities.

Uganda is a signatory to the underlying Yamoussoukro Decision but has stayed out of SAATM, which now has about 38 members, partly over concerns about exposing its loss-making national carrier to competition. The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority has said it is finalising consultations before submitting a cabinet memorandum on joining.

Delayed agreement

Aviation was one of several sticking points at the forum, which went ahead without the government-to-government commission meant to accompany it.

Dr Kana said the Joint Permanent Commission had been delayed on Nigeria’s side, and pledged that a binational commission agreement would be signed before the end of 2026 on a directive from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “The delay has not been from the Ugandan side; it has been from our own side,” he said.

Dr Sam Omara of the Uganda High Commission in Abuja said the hold-up was procedural, with draft agreements passing between each country’s foreign and justice ministries for review before being returned. Kabonero said Uganda had long been ready to sign. “The delay is not on our side,” he said.

Trade and investment

Kabonero said the forum was part of a strategy that ties Uganda’s diplomatic missions to export targets in support of the government’s ten-fold growth plan — the aim of expanding the economy to $500bn over a decade — with Nigeria positioned as a gateway to the wider West African market.

Dr Omara said 23 Nigerian companies were taking part, and that one wanted to buy 2,000 one-year-old female Ankole cattle, which he said were sought for veal low in cholesterol. He said Uganda could serve as a food basket for West Africa, citing UN Food and Agriculture Organization figures that about 30 million Nigerians lacked access to basic foodstuffs.

Uganda’s Minister of State for Trade, General Wilson Mbasu Mbadi, the guest of honour, urged both sides to move beyond diplomacy towards a commercial partnership, highlighting value-addition in coffee, dairy and sugar. Ambassador Philip Odida of the Uganda High Commission in Abuja compared the two economies, putting Nigeria’s at about $377bn and Uganda’s at about $67bn.

Chief Michael Awunor, president of the Nigeria–Uganda Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, said the success of any deals should be measured by their effect on ordinary households. Ambassador Mistura Abdulraheem, chargé d’affaires at the Nigeria High Commission in Kampala, described the forum as a platform for identifying practical cooperation.

The forum continues with exhibitions, business matching and site visits.