A Review of the Industrial Policy Strategies for Indigenous Aircraft and Components Manufacturing: Made in Nigeria Wings

Nigeria’s aviation and aerospace sector appear to spend well over $500M annually on imported aircraft parts and MRO services, yet has no indigenous aircraft manufacturing capacity nor overtly appears to be committed to putting up a program for one any time soon. This paper develops industrial policy strategies to achieve “Made in Nigeria Wings” through tiered indigenous manufacturing of aircraft and components between 2026 and 2040. Using comparative analysis of Brazil’s Embraer model, Turkey’s TAI model, and data from NCAA, IATA, NBS 2020-2025, we apply Porter’s Diamond framework to critically assess Nigeria’s competitive factors. Findings show Nigeria has a whooping market size of about 220 million; a growing MRO demand of about $1B across West Africa, and huge drone manufacturing base, but ironically faces obvious constraints and challenges. Common among them are: Absence of aircraft parts ecosystem; about 35% import duty on imported aircraft components, lack of certified suppliers, and absence of sustainable long-term policy. Strategies proposed to ameliorate these challenges include: 1. Manufacturing of Tiered roadmap starting with composites, avionics and engines. 2. Establishment of aerospace free zones with supplier park in Lagos/Kano, 3. Enforcement of offset policy mandating about 20% local content in aircraft imports, 4. Collaborations and endorsement of PPP with Embraer; Turkish TAI for technology transfer. Admittedly, implementation can capture 30% of West Africa MRO market, create 35,000 jobs, and reduce aircraft import dependence by about 40% by 2040. The paper concludes that proactive industrial policy and not just market forces alone, is needed to develop “Made in Nigeria Wings”.