by Stanley Azuakola

Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji has revealed that he was supposed to board the ill-fated Dana aircraft, which crashed on Sunday.

The Speaker testified on the floor of the House that he was scheduled to take the flight back to Lagos from Abuja where he’d gone to attend a meeting of the Conference of Speakers.

According to him, one of his aides  travelled from Lagos to Abuja on that Sunday with the same plane and it was while the plane to Lagos that it crashed just few minutes to landing at the Murtala Mohammed Airport.

“That same aircraft was the one I would have boarded this morning (Monday) because I asked him to book a flight for us to get back to Lagos today (Monday) and he went and bought tickets for Dana flight for me and my aides, including himself.

“But by the time he returned from where he bought the ticket, the aircraft had crashed. But of course even those who sold the tickets didn’t know. I got the news that the Dana aircraft crashed in Lagos,” Ikuforiji said.

The speaker then went on to berate “governments” for being uninterested in protecting the lives and properties of Nigerians. He said, “We have regulatory authorities that are busy regulating what comes to the pockets of those to regulate things that affect our lives.

“If we fail to fix roads on which we can move our cars, the air roads that God gave to us freely with one of the best weather conditions in the world, is also giving us challenges because we do not keep to the rules.

“This aircraft already got to Lagos and the passengers would have heard, ‘fasten your seat belts,’ we are approaching before the incident happened.

“Just think of the last few minutes of those who died simply because somebody refused to do his job. This is just sad!”

The Speaker also lamented the poor rescue efforts of government officials during cases of emergencies and their poor facilities which make them rely on companies like Julius Berger.

“NEMA does not even have small helicopters that could fight fire.

“The Minister of Aviation said there was a mayday call and I asked why they didn’t respond immediately. We allowed them to get roasted just like that.

“You will hear rumour, from the near truth to the ridiculous and I wonder why the people didn’t speak out before the incident if they truly knew all these.

“I keep wondering why we are here, because it is virtually everything that we do wrong and when you do anything right, it appears that is a mistake,” he said.

 

Source – PM News Nigeria