University of Abuja to get aerospace centre courtesy of XEjet partnership

XEJet, the Lagos-based all-business-class carrier, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Abuja to establish the XEJet Centre for Aerospace and Space Engineering. The centre will be a facility built specifically to train aeronautical and astronautical engineers on Nigerian soil.

Group CEO Emmanuel Iza announced the deal from Lagos on Monday. XEJet has been quietly expanding beyond flying passengers. The airline launched charter services in 2022, grew into scheduled routes connecting Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and Port Harcourt, and has been building out its engineering and training operations alongside.

This partnership is the most concrete step in that direction.

The build-out will occur in two phases. The first is equipping existing Faculty of Engineering labs for immediate teaching. It will also involve preparing the program for accreditation by the National Universities Commission and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).

The University of Abuja

The second phase involves a long-term project: designing and building a lasting, eco-friendly academic complex. XEJet will completely fund this project, and it will be built according to COREN’s standards for Outcomes-Based Education.

XEJet to give jobs to students before they graduate

The most striking part of this deal isn’t the building; it’s what XEJet is promising students. The company has committed to automatically hiring the top three graduates from the programme every year for ten years.

That’s a direct, contractual link between university performance and employment, the kind of thing Nigerian engineering graduates rarely get.

Iza anchored the announcement on a moment in January 2025, when XEJet broke ground on its flight support facility.

“We were clear about our ambition to position Nigerian aviation firmly on the global map and to empower young aerospace engineers to build, innovate, and compete internationally,” he said, describing the centre as where that vision starts to take shape.

XEJet CEO, Emmanuel Iza

The University of Abuja’s Engineering Dean, Abdulfatai Jimoh, welcomed the development, noting that producing employable graduates requires more than classroom instruction. Real industrial exposure matters, and that only comes from partnerships like this one.

The bigger picture

Nigeria has long depended on foreign expertise in aerospace engineering, and that gap has been expensive, both financially and strategically. A single university centre cannot fix years of underfunding, but it’s a start to developing talent.

The phased approach also shows some discipline; XEJet isn’t promising everything at once.

The important thing now is to keep going. The Nigerian aviation industry is difficult because it is as expensive as it is unstable, and as such, hard to make long-term plans in. Thus, if XEJet completes the permanent facility, it will be a major achievement for the company and for Nigeria.

If not, it joins a long list of well-intentioned MoUs that never moved past the signing ceremony.

Also read: Airbus achieves record 793 aircraft deliveries in 2025 despite engine crisis

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