Drone Use Will Be Regulated In Nigeria – FG

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has come out to say that the Federal Government will come up with a policy to regulate the use of drones.

He recently revealed this at the weekly State House Briefing in Aso Villa, Abuja, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, despite the fact that drones are proving important all across the globe, managing them is extremely key, especially when they are used for private and commercial purposes.

He added that Nigeria cannot afford to find its airspace dotted with all these crafts without proper regulation.

His words, “They are becoming to become a phenomenon or their own. Everybody is flying drones now. They are for good uses; you fly drones now to find pipeline vandalisation or breakage or carry out integrity tests, you fly drones now to many places to order pizza, to send birthday gifts and so on.”

“Very soon, we will find our airspace dotted with all these craft and managing them alone will become such a huge challenge because they will be operating around within the airspace and somebody needs to control them.”

“So, we thought that we should create a policy. The last time I spoke on drones, I gave an example of a friend of mine who was flying about 3 miles away from the (Aso) Villa. He was flying it at about 500ft above ground level and he was flying it towards the airport which is at the west side of the city and he was flying it about 65km per hour.”

“These drones are now beginning to carry loads like 5kg, 10kg, or more. If this gentleman (friend of mine) is just flying this drone around and there is an inbound airplane or an airplane that is taking off, it could hit the airplane, get ingested in the engine and cause disaster. And don’t think it is not going to happen. Insha Allah (by God’s grace), it is not going to happen in Nigeria and in anywhere but we have seen examples of it in the UK (United Kingdom), we’ve seen British airways, we’ve seen also in the US (United States).”

“So, we thought we should develop a policy for remotely piloted aircraft to have them organised and regulated.”

“We are policy-makers and we will make policies that will keep our country safe and secure.”

“The policy is going to be very simple: just like you walk in and buy the drones and also be able to follow those rules and regulations even if you are an enthusiast.”