Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority said it had received over 300 applications for NCAA certification of different types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also known as drones.
According to the federal government, the setting up of a dedicated Unmanned Aircraft Systems unit by the NCAA is visionary and will help and accelerate the country’s efforts to control and coordinate the increasing use of the technology
The Minister of Aviation and Aviation Development, Festus Keyamo, said the Ministry would ensure the success and growth of the unit through the provision of training and staff development to effectively monitor the use and operation of Unmanned Air Vehicles, otherwise known as drones, across the country, according to Businessday.
In his speech during his tour of the NCAA drone portal, the Minister, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Emmanuel Meribole, declared the UAS Integration Unit at the NCAA’s headquarters Annex in Lagos as part of his activities at the 4th Drone Texc Conference and Exhibition held in Lagos.
Meribole praised the vision of the Director General, of NCAA, Captain Chris Najomo, affirming that the ministry will support it, and urged collaborations with key stakeholders leveraging technology to achieve the vision of the unit, affirming that the ministry will support it.
He said “I have heard all your requests and challenges. One of the takeaways from here which I will gladly impress on the minister is that you need training. Of course, you need to bring it up for us to see how we can find resources to help you meet that.
“Secondly, we need to leverage technology. Leveraging technology has many parts, simple application processes, simple approval, and simple collaboration processes. For you to prevent non-state actors you need to identify who among them is not registered with you. So the local law enforcement will also have to come in.”
He said “I don’t know how many staff you have, but you can’t go round the country, it is either you enter into collaborations by certifying the people that you have to do the work so that you have a value chain addition as you go round and of course the most important thing in all these is that you have a visionary leader at NCAA who is driving all these things.
“No matter the kind of support the minister gives, you need visionary leadership to ensure that we succeed. We also expect you to lead the way and we also expect you to think out of the box. We have critical thinkers as we move on. I am going to pass your message to the honorable minister and I can assure you that we are going to give you all the support.”
Meanwhile, the Regional Manager, Lagos NCAA, Bukola Teriba noted that the development of the Part 21 regulation document for drone flight operations is not only beneficial to the NCAA but also good for Nigeria.
Bukola commended the Perm Sec and the DG of NCAA, Captain Chris Najomo for the historic feat.
She said “Congratulations to you for being part of this. History will record that this feat was achieved during your time. For us here we will not forget to thank the DG CA whose bold initiatives it was to take up that singular task of identifying and has set up a dedicated drone desk in the agency.
“His predecessors have been pulling inspectors from different units or directorates, most times these inspectors were also saddled with other responsibilities from the demanding aviation systems and dedicating little or no time to the UAS integration project. For the DG himself, he took the bull by the horns and answered the clarion calls from operators especially looking at the overwhelming applications that we have received over time.
“He must be strongly commended for setting up a dedicated desk to anchor all the UAS industry applications and requests. Another is the strong will to make work very well and function. The DG is still very supportive of the unit.”
