KEY POINTS

• Abuja airport registers over 10,000 Go Cashless cards since August 2025.
• FAAN cashless policy kicked off March 1, causing gridlock at toll gates.
• Passengers missed flights as last-minute card rush overwhelmed entry points.

The numbers are climbing, but the chaos of the first few days is not something anyone at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport is in a hurry to revisit.

Ahmed Danjuma, the airport manager at Abuja’s main international gateway, said no fewer than 10,000 users have registered Go Cashless cards at the facility since the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, began sensitising airport users about the policy. He made this known Tuesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.

But the registration milestone tells only part of the story. Since March 1, when FAAN fully switched off cash payments at airport toll gates nationwide, scenes outside both the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos have looked anything but smooth.

Vehicles queued for kilometres. Some passengers abandoned their cars and paid commercial motorcyclists thousands of naira just to beat the gridlock and catch their flights. Others did not make it in time.

“Since March 1, we have gone cashless in line with the policy of this government to eliminate the collection of cash at toll gates,” Danjuma said. “Now, if you go to any FAAN gate and you want to pay cash, you will be disappointed because nobody will allow you to pass through.”

A Policy Months in the Making, Still Caught People Off Guard

FAAN had not exactly sprung this on anyone. The authority, working in partnership with financial technology company Paystack, announced the transition back in September 2025, giving motorists roughly six months to register and load their prepaid access cards before the March deadline.

Registration at the Abuja airport started in August 2025. But as Danjuma acknowledged, most people did not bother.

“The majority of the airport users didn’t bother to come for registration on time, and this was in spite of the sensitisation carried out by FAAN,” he said.

The result was predictable. On March 1, the first full day of enforcement, toll gate officials turned back drivers who arrived without cards on the spot, directed them to registration points, and required them to fill out forms and load funds onto new cards before allowing them to proceed. The on-site rush overwhelmed toll lanes and pushed traffic into surrounding roads for hours.

FAAN’s Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Henry Agbebire, said the situation was essentially self-inflicted by procrastinating motorists. “We publicised the cashless policy, but many people waited until today to get their cards,” he said on the day of the rollout. “Nobody is allowed to pay cash anymore, so that created the initial rush.”

A cab driver at the Abuja airport, Musa Bello, described what that rush looked like from the ground. One of his passengers, he said, ended up paying N5,000 to a motorcyclist just to bypass the gridlock and avoid missing a scheduled flight.

How the New System Works

Under the Go Cashless arrangement, the prepaid access card itself is free.Users must load a minimum balance, typically between ₦1,000 and ₦2,000, to activate the card. The system deducts a ₦500 maintenance fee at the point of loading. Once activated, users tap or scan the card at entry points and the toll barrier opens automatically.

FAAN also accepts point-of-sale payments using bank debit cards, though officials have been candid that POS transactions slow down vehicle processing and contribute to queues.

The authority has consistently encouraged users to obtain the dedicated FAAN card rather than rely on POS at the gate.

Cards are available at FAAN commercial offices, access gates, participating bank branches, and through online registration via QR code at faan.gov.ng.

FAAN has deployed additional staff at toll lanes, expanded on-site registration points and increased coordination on the ground since the initial chaos, describing the early disruption as teething problems typical of any major system change.

Danjuma framed the policy in broader terms on Tuesday, saying the move aligns with the federal government’s push to eliminate cash collection at all revenue-generating agencies, improve transparency, and block leakages that have long undermined FAAN’s revenue base. He noted that no previous administration had fully implemented a cashless toll regime at Nigerian airports.

Airport users who spoke with NAN after the initial disruption largely backed the reform in principle, though several called on the government to channel earnings from the new system directly into infrastructure upgrades at Nigerian airports.