The African Democratic Congress has demanded an audit of the money released for maintaining Nigerian Air Force aircraft, pointing to a wide gap between what the fleet got and what the Presidential Air Fleet received in the same year.
The call came after an Air Force ATR-42 crashed into a swamp near the Naval Base at Igbokoda, Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, on Monday, 5 October 2026. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo confirmed that all 32 people aboard, 25 passengers and seven crew, were killed. The aircraft, tail number NGR 931, lost contact with controllers at about 9:13 am on a routine flight from Benin to Lagos. President Bola Tinubu declared three days of national mourning and ordered an investigation.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC commiserated with the bereaved families and said it would not pre-empt the inquiry. It argued, though, that the tragedy was an occasion to again question how the defence budget is being implemented.
The party rested its case on figures drawn from the Federal Government’s Open Treasury Portal. By its account, only about N4.85bn, roughly 13.98 per cent of the N34.71bn budgeted for Air Force aircraft maintenance, had been released as at December 2025. The Punch, in its report, cited the figure as N4.5bn, but the portal record used by several outlets puts it at N4.85bn.
Against that, the party set the Presidential Air Fleet, where N20.27bn of the N20.74bn budgeted for maintenance had been released over the same period, a 97.76 per cent disbursement. Abdullahi described the contrast as a sign of skewed priorities. “While the fleet that serves a handful of people in power got almost every kobo it asked for, the fleet that serves and protects 200 million Nigerians was left with crumbs,” he said.
He added that the issue was not whether the President’s aircraft should be maintained, but whether personnel flying in dangerous conditions had equally serviceable equipment. “The safety of the President matters. But what also matters is the safety of the pilots and airmen who put their lives on the line in defence of the country,” the statement read. “Patriotism does not replace spare parts, and condolence messages do not take the place of accountability.”
The ADC wants investigators to look beyond the immediate circumstances of the crash and examine the aircraft’s maintenance history, defence procurement practices, and the gap between budgeted sums and actual releases. It specifically asked for an audit of maintenance spending and budgetary releases for Air Force aircraft.
The figures the party quoted fit a pattern already flagged earlier in the year. Records from the Open Treasury Portal, reviewed by groups tracking federal spending, showed that of the N15.75bn budgeted for Air Force security equipment in 2025, N5.25bn, or 33.33 per cent, was released. For the Nigerian Army, only about N1.46bn of N20.56bn earmarked for security equipment, roughly 7 per cent, was disbursed in the same year. Procurement of defence equipment fared worse still, with about N19.25bn of N298.44bn released, under 7 per cent.
The Presidential Air Fleet has long drawn scrutiny over its cost. The 2025 Appropriation Act set aside more than N55bn for the fleet’s maintenance and overhaul, with the single largest line, about N8.77bn, going to the overhaul of three aircraft engines. Public records reviewed earlier in 2026 put total commitments to the fleet between 2023 and 2026, covering acquisition, maintenance and operations, at between N169bn and N179bn. The Federal Government has maintained that a functional presidential fleet is necessary for official duties and diplomacy, and that investment in newer aircraft reduces long-term maintenance costs.
As at Tuesday, the cause of the Igbokoda crash had not been established. The Olu of Igbokoda, Oba Afolabi Odidiomo, said the aircraft went down in a waterlogged area while it was raining and that the plane did not catch fire but sank into the water. Ondo State governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa suggested a technical problem rather than the weather may have been responsible, though no official finding has confirmed either possibility. The Air Force has said a full board of inquiry will determine what happened.
Whether poor maintenance funding played any part in the crash remains unknown and is a question only the formal investigation can answer. What the budget records do establish is a consistent shortfall in releases for military aircraft maintenance and equipment through 2025, set against near-complete funding for the presidential fleet. The ADC’s demand now puts the pressure on the investigating authorities to publish those maintenance records alongside their findings on the cause.