Nigeria has climbed to level three in the implementation of the State Safety Programme (SSP) Process which places it among world leaders in aviation safety.

The country is at par with countries like the United States of America, United Kingdom etc who are already in this category.

An SSP is an integrated set of regulations and activities aimed at improving aviation safety which will be monitored through Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach (CMA) after such a state has achieved an Effective Implementation (EI) of over 60 percent.

It is required that states that have achieved EI levels of over 60 per cent should endeavour to fully implement SSP by 2019.

Nigeria achieved an EI Level of 67.36% during the immediate past ICAO USOAP Audit in March 2016 which is above world average of 63.54%.

The SSP process was initiated among International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO) member countries in compliance with the organization's requirements as contained in Annex 19 on Safety Management.

It was learnt that ICAO tracks the SSP implementation process of member-states via its Integrated Safety Trend Analysis and Reporting System (iSTARS).

According to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Nigeria has completed its Gap Analysis, implemented 43.6% of the required SSP tasks.

General Manager, Public Relations of the NCAA, Mr. Sam Adurogboye told newsmen in Lagos that the country had developed a detailed action plan for the accomplishment of the outstanding tasks with an established and approved timeline.

So far only two member states-Australia and Sri Lanka- have achieved full implementation of the SSP according to ICAO records.

But the NCAA said Nigeria is poised to achieving Level four which is 100% by the end of 2017.

Daily Trust