Why We Are Expanding Aviation College From Zaria – Keyamo

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Kayamo, has said the decision of the Federal Government to expand the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology out from Zaria, Kaduna State, was in line with its economic policies.

Naija News reports that Keyamo explained this to the Joint Aviation Committees of the National Assembly during the 2025 budget defence on Wednesday.

The Minister decried that the government had had to buy private residences to accommodate the Aviation College which has been expanding in terms of student population.

Keyamo also noted that every part of Nigeria should be able to access the college from each campus closer to them like it was done to Nigeria Law School.

His words: “Zaria has been a star for all of us. We’ve been very, very proud of Zaria. Zaria has been there since 1964, serving the entire country. And most of our pilots and the captains you see today passed through Zaria. So it’s actually a pride for us. And it has received a lot of commendations from ICAO, a lot of certificates from all over the world. Right now we are having problems of space in Zaria. To give you an update, sir, I’m sure you graciously approved it last year or the year before for us to buy an additional hotel in Zaria because we could not accommodate the students again in the main campus because of the burgeoning population of the school.

“So we had to now buy the Zaria Hotel. The Zaria Hotel is now an annex, even if it’s in Zaria, of that training college. And we expect the populations to even grow beyond that. So the question we asked ourselves is are we going to continue to buy houses in Zaria, within Zaria, to accommodate more population who are willing to come to the school?

“And if we are doing that, why not give other parts of this country the opportunity to also have access to those campuses too? Why continue to expand and buy private houses and hotels within one town in a country of 240 million people who want access to that? The same thing happened in the law school, sir.

“The law school was about the same time that Zaria was established in Kaduna. The law school was established in Lagos. It was about 1960-64, there about, that same period. But the law school has still grown beyond Lagos. The law school has campuses all over the country now for people to have easy access to law school. So it is one country, sir.

“The other people who, they have campuses now that have been named, Ebonyi has one, I think Yola has one, and on and on like that. They are extremely grateful to the federal government. They are happy that they now have easy access to training too, training facilities too. So we cannot continue to expand only within Zaria. Other parts of this country should also have access to training facilities too.”