KEY POINTS
- Tinubu approves moving the NSIB out of the aviation ministry to the Presidency.
- The decision overrules Aviation Minister Keyamo, who wanted the bureau to stay.
- Approval was conveyed in a letter from the President’s Private Secretary dated March 5, 2026.
President Bola Tinubu has ended months of institutional disagreement by approving the relocation of the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau from the Ministry of Aviation to the Presidency, overruling Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo in the process.
The President’s Private Secretary, Damilola Aderemi, confirmed the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau Presidency move in a letter dated March 5, 2026. The Presidency has not yet publicly stated the specific office to which the bureau will report.
Why the old structure was a problem
The decision follows a November 2025 recommendation from Hadiza Usman, the President’s Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination and Head of the Central Results Delivery Coordination Unit, who advised Tinubu that keeping the bureau under the aviation ministry was out of step with global best practices and was limiting the agency’s effectiveness.
Usman’s advice pointed to the United States National Transportation Safety Board as the model to follow an autonomous body that reports directly to the highest level of government rather than through a sectoral ministry.
The core argument for moving the bureau was not just about aviation. The NSIB also investigates accidents on water and rail, and its placement inside the aviation ministry created an obvious structural mismatch. Keeping a multi-modal accident investigation agency answerable to a single-sector ministry, critics argued, undermined both its independence and its credibility across transport sectors.
Keyamo had pushed back consistently. In June 2025, the ministry opposed a National Assembly push to relocate the NSIB to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, with a then-permanent secretary appearing before a joint legislative committee to argue that the bureau should stay put while legislators gave it stronger operational protections.
Keyamo overruled, Bureau gets fresh start
The presidential approval further settles the question definitively in favour of those who argued independence required a structural change, not just a policy assurance. The NSIB, which has long sought greater funding and autonomy to carry out its mandate, will now operate outside ministerial oversight for the first time.
In addition The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau Presidency relocation aligns Nigeria’s accident investigation framework more closely with the structure leading transport safety bodies worldwide use, where experts consider organisational distance from the industries under investigation essential to public trust in the findings.
