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NCAA
probes aborted plane hijack
� Oshiomhole thanks
God
By Wisdom
Patrick
and Rotimi Durojaiye (Lagos)
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
President Adams Oshiomhole on Monday expressed shock, but thanked God, for
surviving the planned hijack of the plane on which he was travelling from
Abuja to Lagos last Thursday.
Oshiomhole was on board
together with NLC Head of Information Owie Lakemfa, who confirmed on
Monday the story exclusively reported by Daily
Independent
on the same day that a strange pistol slipped through all the security
checks at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and found its way into the
aircraft.
Lakemfa said: �The congress
president would want to thank God that we returned to Abuja safely�.
Confirmation of the story came
just as the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) may have begun a
probe into the incident.
Sources close to it said
although all airlines are bound by the International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO) rule to file a mandatory occurrence report (MOR), the
affected airline was yet to do so at the close of business on
Monday.
The NCAA is vested with the
economic and safety regulation of the aviation industry by ensuring
compliance with government policies and ICAO Standards and Recommendations
(SARPS).
Sources confirmed that it
plans to bring down the full weight of the law on the airline which has
breached the Air Navigation Rule (ANR).
The local operator is accused
of engaging in unfair and deceptive practices by failing to the report
such a dangerous incident to the regulatory body and risks being
prohibited from the Nigerian airspace, among other
sanctions.
Even though the plan of the
alleged hijackers has been thwarted, not a few people have wondered how a
gun could pass through the security network at the airport undetected. �I
think something serious is wrong somewhere�, a passenger on another
airline said.
Lagos lawyer and human rights
activists Festus Keyamo implored the law enforcement agents to examine
what went wrong at the airport on the day.
He stressed that it amounts to
economic sabotage and creation of tension at the airport in the federal
capital for such an object to be found on a plane, and that �the
government should not sweep this under the carpet�.
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