Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has ordered the immediate release of approved funds for the maintenance of the country’s space assets and set in motion a revised 25-year National Space Roadmap, with Vice President Kashim Shettima convening the inaugural National Space Council meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on March 3. The directives include a new domestic satellite launch centre, institutional reforms to retain space talent, and a cross-agency enforcement mandate for NASRDA, all framed against a global space economy projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2040.
- President Tinubu, represented by Vice President Shettima, used the inaugural National Space Council meeting to approve that the cost of implementing the revised 25-year National Space Roadmap be forwarded to the Federal Executive Council for formal approval, making it a cabinet-level agenda item rather than an agency plan
- The Vice President ordered the immediate release of space-related funds through the Federal Ministry of Finance, directing all relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies and private-sector partners to comply with existing laws and ensure timely disbursement. The instruction follows years of delayed funding that has left Nigeria’s operational satellites and ground infrastructure undermaintained
- The Council endorsed plans to develop and operationalise the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Space Centre in Ekpe, a facility designed to give Nigeria domestic capacity to launch and maintain satellites locally, reducing dependence on foreign launch providers and strengthening technological autonomy
- A working group of space experts from NASRDA, the Nigerian Communications Commission, the National Defence Space Agency, and NIGCOMSAT was approved to review and refine the 25-year roadmap, creating a multi-agency architecture for coordinated execution rather than siloed agency planning
- NASRDA’s conditions of service and staff regulations are to be aligned with international best practices, a targeted move to reduce brain drain from Nigeria’s space sector to international markets and agencies, where Nigerian-trained engineers and scientists are in high demand
- NASRDA was directed to use all legally available means to enforce spectrum management and the responsible use of space assets under the NASRDA Act of 2010, adding regulatory enforcement teeth to a framework that has historically lacked implementation follow-through
- Shettima framed the investment case in practical terms, describing space technology as a tool for the farmer in the field, the teacher in the classroom, the entrepreneur in the market, and the policymaker who must plan with evidence. The Council cited precision agriculture, border security, disaster response, environmental monitoring, digital connectivity, and cybersecurity as the primary national use cases
- Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Kingsley Udeh described the session as historic for Nigeria’s space ecosystem, marking the first time the country’s space programme has been elevated to direct presidential council oversight with cabinet-level funding accountability
Nigeria operates NigeriaSat-X, NigeriaSat-2, and the NIGCOMSAT-1R communications satellite, assets that have suffered from inconsistent maintenance funding since their launches. The gap between Nigeria’s stated space ambitions and the budget reality has been a persistent tension within NASRDA for over a decade. Tuesday’s National Space Council meeting represents a structural change rather than a policy statement: by elevating space funding to presidential council oversight and routing disbursement through the Federal Ministry of Finance with explicit VP authority, the administration has created an accountability chain that previous space directives lacked. The Ekpe launch centre is the most commercially significant announcement in the package. A domestic launch capability would position Nigeria to offer launch services to other African countries, generate foreign exchange, and reduce the dollar-cost of maintaining its own satellite constellation over time. Africa’s space economy, already valued at over $24.95 billion and growing at a compound annual rate of 7.97%, is detailed in our earlier coverage of how the continent’s satellite data is now feeding farmers from orbit. Nigeria’s moves this week add the critical missing piece: sovereign launch infrastructure.
The Bigger Picture: Africa’s space economy is racing toward $39.52 billion by 2030 and a global market that will cross $1 trillion by 2040, but almost none of that value creation currently happens on African soil. Data is collected by African ground stations, processed by servers in Europe and the United States, and sold back to African governments and businesses at international rates. Nigeria’s decision to build a domestic launch centre attacks that dependency at the root. A country that can launch its own satellites does not need to negotiate launch contracts with SpaceX, Arianespace, or ISRO; it sets its own schedule, controls its own data, and builds a local supply chain in aerospace manufacturing, fuel, and ground systems that generates jobs and exports rather than foreign exchange outflows. The talent retention directive signals that Nigeria understands the human capital dimension too: the best space engineers Nigeria has trained are currently working in Houston, Toulouse, and Bangalore. Aligning NASRDA’s conditions of service with international standards is an attempt to make staying in Nigeria a competitive professional choice. If the funding actually flows this time, and the Ekpe centre moves from approval to construction, Nigeria will have made the most consequential investment decision in African space in a generation.
Source: Space in Africa
