The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) lost four senior members of staff last Sunday in the crash of Dana Airline Flight 9J-922.

NNPC staff lost in the tragedy include the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs, Levi Ajuonuma; Manager, Pipeline and Depot Projects, Okikiolu Olukayode; Senior Contract Specialist on Secondment to Brass LNG; and the Deputy Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), a subsidiary of the corporation in charge of government investment interest in the joint venture projects, Inuwa Ahmad.

In a press statement, the NNPC Group Managing Director, Austen Oniwon, who is currently in the United States for an official assignment, said that despite the grief, the NNPC is still united in faith with God, who is all-knowing, that he is the only one that can comfort and console.

“I pray for the repose of the gentle souls of our departed colleagues, members of their families and other Nigerian and international passengers and crew in the ill-fated aircraft and for God to grant the nation, the nuclear families that lost their beloved ones the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

“I extend my deep condolences to Mr President, the honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources, members of the NNPC and the Nigerian oil and gas industry family that have lost a number of their colleagues in the disaster,” he said, urging the management and staff of the NNPC to “Keep faith” in “this trying period,” Mr. Oniwon said.

The statement was signed on his behalf by the corporation’s General Manager, Media Relations Department, Omar Farouk Ibrahim.