From Daily Times:

The Aviation Safety Network, an exclusive service of the Air Safety Foundation (ASF), in a statement on Monday, revealed that the ill-fated aircraft was acquired by Alaska Airline in November 13, 1990. Twelve years later, on November 4, 2002, the aircraft developed mechanical faults and had an emergency diversion due to smoke in the cabin area, which engineers said was because light ballast had over heated. On August 20, 2006, passengers had to be evacuated after landing at Long Beach, California, due to a chaffed wire bundle that discharged and produced smoke in the cabin area again. Subsequently, Alaska Airlines, on August 21, parked the aircraft until September 11 2008 when it carried out maintenance work on it. Five months after repairs where concluded, on February 2009, Alaska Airlines sold the aircraft, as 5N-RAM, to Dana Airlines. This year, unconfirmed sources at the airline have revealed that the plane has experienced minor faults twice.

There was also a bird-strike listed for April 19, where soon after take-off there was a bird strike and the flight had to return to the airport. The were no casualties at the time

On May 23, after passengers had boarded the aircraft, it was allegedly delayed from take-off at the Lagos airport as mechanics discovered some faults and changed the hydraulic fluid under the left side under carriage tyre mechanism. When Dana Airlines was contacted for their reaction, an official of the carrier, who did not want his name published, said that an official statement would be issued by the company. The MD-83 was manufactured in 1983, announced go-ahead on January 31, 1983 and had first flight on December 17, 1984. It was a longer range development of the basic MD-81/82 with higher weights, more powerful engines, increased fuel capacity and longer range.  It was equipped with slightly more powerful 21,000 1bf Pratt and Whitney JT8D-219s as standard. The aircraft also had higher operating weights with MTOW increased to 160,000 1b and MLW to 139,500 1b. Typical range for the MD-83 with 155 passengers in around 2,504 nautical miles (4,637km).

The MD-83 type planes have had a long history. In more recent years, the statistics show that only 27.3 percent of all occupants survived accidents that had fatalities.