FAAN to Introduce AI-Powered Security Machines at Lagos Airport

Published on April 7, 2025

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has announced plans to deploy new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered security machines at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.

According to Afegbai Igbafe, Director of Aviation Security Services (DASS) at FAAN, the new machines will be installed at the screening point, and customs tables will be removed once the installation is complete.

“We are upgrading the machines to include six different monitors, one for each of the six agencies at the airport, to enable officials to sit and monitor baggage directly from their screens,” Igbafe said.

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He added that the new system will eliminate physical contact and reduce the risk of exploitation, with CCTV cameras installed in designated areas for physical checks.

“The tables you see will be a thing of history; you will not see any table here. There will be no physical contact, because what we are also doing is that when we fix those monitors and the machines dictate unaccepted objects, the concerned officials will take the passenger and his or her baggage to designated areas for physical checks,” Igbafe explained.

Meanwhile, Head of Department, ICT at MMIA, Chima Oge, said one of the new pieces of equipment, the Orion 927DX machine, would help in expediting the identification of organic materials.

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Oge: “It has features that would help with the identification of organic materials accurately and quickly, either in range mode, which highlights the areas based on the range selected by the operator, and/or in interactive mode which provides the operator the option to display the areas based on the value of the pixel.”

However, an aviation security analyst, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retd, faulted the acquisition of the machines.

Ojikutu said, “Would this stop the foreign airlines from stopping their secondary hold-baggage screening? I very much doubt it. The machine can not work alone but is operated by someone. The machine may be TSA approved, but have the foreign airlines discarded secondary screening for their hold-luggage or checked-in luggage and are now relying on the FAAN baggage screening? After the Abdulmutalab exit through the MMA, the TSA bought and gave us a body-screening machine for free. What happened to it after a year is what we were asking ourselves and should be asking ourselves today.”