The Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Monday, September 21, broke the heart of his Sweetheart of several years, Senator Remi Tinubu.
Senator Tinubu, former Lagos State First Lady, three-time Senator of the Federal Republic, turned 60 years old on Monday.
A woman with a heart of gold when it comes to the welfare of the underprivileged and the girl-child, Mrs Tinubu had only one wish for her birthday.
Days before her birth date, she had spent about two million Naira on Newspaper advertisements, telling her family, friends and associates what she wanted as her 60th birthday gift, her wishes.
She wanted no personal gifts, no congratulatory messages in Newspapers.
All she wanted was a fulfilment of her passion, her passion for the underprivileged and the girl-child. She wanted monetary gifts for that course.
And, so, she wanted all gifts channelled to this course. For that, she provided an account number for the expected funds.
But on that day, her heart was broken. Her wish was not granted. It was disobeyed in style – surprisingly, led by her husband, the Jagaban of Borgu.
He put full page adverts in, almost, all the national newspapers, celeberating his wife.
Like a love-struck school boy, he began: “To my beautiful, graceful, elegant and loving wife, Her Excellency, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.”
Then, she extolled her qualities as a wonderful vitreous wife, as well as his greatest ally and confidante in times of good and bad. And then ended with, “Enjoy your day my love.”
Others followed same path. The power couple’s children and grandchildren, governors, friends, associates.
One newspaper, alone, had 64 &1/2 pages of adverts, prompting one commentator to ask why the newspaper did not just publish a special edition for the Distinguished Senator. On the number of pages of newspaper congratulatory messages, and broke the record.
Converted into cash, it would have fetched her course dozens of millions of Naira.
It is not known why her husband rejected her birthday wish. But in our part of the world, to many, celeberation of birthdays is a big deal, especially, milestone birthdays. 60th birthday is sure one of those milestones.
However, her husband, being a money-man, must have satisfied her both ways – publicly celebrating her, and, along with his many money-friends and associates, thrown in several millions of Naira into the account number she provided.
Less than a week after the defeat and demystification of former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Adams Oshiomhole, and APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the Edo State Governorship Election by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP stalwarts plan to storm Lagos en masse to teach Tinubu another lesson in his own backyard.
They plan to defeat him at the Lagos East Senatorial Seat by-election. The seat became vacant on the sudden death of Senator Mayo Oshinowo via COVID-19.
The plan is to deal Tinubu an early blow, ahead of 2023 elections, during which he is allegedly planning to run for the Presidential seat.
The newly re-elected Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, is also committed to fully campaign for Babatunde Gbanamosi, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.
The plan is to use the Lagos East Senatorial By-Election as a referendum on the strongman of Lagos politics, Tinubu.
Sources close to Obaseki confirmed the governor has enlisted to the full and joint participation of the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, on the mission.
Bola Tinubu
Other governors on board in the project are Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.
The strategy to be employed is to mobilize residents from the South South and South East in Lagos to come out massively to vote for Gbadamosi who will be going against the candidate of the APC Tokunbo Abiru, an alleged Tinubu imposition on the party.
The thinking is that the momentum being from the Edo victory will embolden that segment of Lagos voters to come out, and embolden their South West neighbors to also come out to deal a decisive defeat on Tinubu and his candidate.
Former Lagos Governor, Ambode is also from the Senatorial zone, and even though he is of the APC, may not be disposed to support a Tinubu candidate.
It was Tinubu who not only denied Ambrose a second term ticket, but humiliated him at an ill-arranged direct primaries. Ambrose woefully lost to the incumbent Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
The Ambrose group is not likely to support a Tinubu candidate.
Governor Obaseki is said to be particularly irked by the arrogance of Tinubu treating the then upcoming election as a coronation for the APC candidate, and his call on Edo people to reject him.
Abiru, who, until now was assumed would simply walk into the office, may not, now, find it that easy. Obaseki’s victory seem to have awakened many, and dealth a blow on the politics of godfatherism. The spirit may extend to Lagos.
The plan is firm that Obaseki, Wike, Makinde will headline a massive rally for Gbadamosi, the candidate of the PDP.
A Gbadamosi victory in the senate race will raise his profile for a 2023 governorship election in Lagos state.
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, has issued a note of warning to all Airlines over the Covid-19 guidelines.
Domestic airline operators risk losing their licences over non-compliance with the COVID-19 protocols of the Federal Government, NCAA has warned on Monday.
The NCAA Director General, Musa Nuhu, issued the warning in a letter to all operators (DG39/20) with reference NCAA/DG/AIR/11/16/267, dated Sept. 21, on Monday in Lagos.
The letter bore the title:
“Non-Compliance with COVID-19 Protocols’’.
Nuhu said the warning was necessary because some domestic airlines have been flouting the protocols.
The Director General added that continuous breach of the rules would attract severe penalties, including cancellation of approval to resume domestic operations.
“It has been brought to the notice of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority that some domestic airline operators have not been complying with the COVID-19 protocols.
“These protocols were released through All Operators Letter (AOL) DG035/20 ref. NCAA/DG/AIR/ 11/16/260, dated Sept. 4 and an Advisory Circular (AC) NCAA-AC-AMS-006, also dated Sept. 4.
“Approval for resumption of domestic operations are predicated on compliance with the above protocols.”
Nuhu added that this was a warning to all domestic operators who were not in compliance to desist from such acts immediately.
Few days after the United Bank for Africa, UBA Plc released its half year results the biggest debate in the industry is not about the declining profit of one of Nigeria’s top banks, which stood at less than N44.4 billion by the end of June, rather what’s agitating the minds of many is its performance in the area of complying with various Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN regulatory instruments.
Recall that on Wednesday April 29, the bank held its virtual Annual General Meeting, AGM where the its chairman, Tony Elumelu, reiterated his bank’s continuous support for the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Elumelu had praised the CBN Governor for his various initiatives in mobilising the private sector to provide support, medical care and palliatives to reduce the effects of the corona virus pandemic on Nigerians.
He also assured the federal government and CBN that his bank’s “commitment to improving lives in Africa is a long-term one, which we do not take lightly, as we assist governments in Africa to curb this pandemic and help sustain employment across the continent.”
As a good measure, the Pan African Bank donated a whopping N5 billion to the federal government to stop the spread of the pandemic, one of the highest donations so far.
UBA Antagonistic To CBN
But in spite of the effort to portray UBA Plc as a responsible and peoples’ bank, experts in the sector insist that the lender has not shied away from being antagonistic to CBN policies of the federal government.
In fact, a source told the magazine that some UBA management staff still consider Emefiele as a former colleague “who was lucky to have been employed by government as CBN governor. The feeling that this guy used to be one of us is still a factor in the relationship between the regulator and commercial banks CEOs in the country,” he said.
The apex bank governor is a former managing director of Zenith Bank Plc.
This is the story.
In January this year for instance, the CBN governor was so much worried by the volume of cash in circulation, which according to him, has led to serious inflation in the country.
Emefiele: Fines Erring Banks
As a way out of the problem, Emefiele consulted widely, including with commercial banks chief executives in the country on the issue, following which the regulator decided to use one of its control instruments to curb the menace of excess cash in the economy not knowing that some banks have their own plan.
The CBN at its Monetary Policy Committee, MPC meeting on January 26, 2020, decided to mop up excess cash by increasing the Cash Reserve Requirements, CRR of commercial banks in the country to 27.5 percent from 22 percent it earlier set in the last quarter of 2019.
The CRR is the statutory percentage of customers’ deposits commercial banks keep with CBN.
UBA’s Huge Customers’ Deposit
According to the 2019 half year results released by the UBA to the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC customers’ deposit stood at N3.51 trillion out of the total assets of the N5.10 trillion at the time.
UBA customers’ deposit is one of the highest in the industry, and it has been on a steady rise, considering that the 2019 figure represents 4.8 percent increase from the N3.35trillion for the 2018 financial year.
Despite the phenomenal rise in its customers’ deposit, analysts insist that it should ordinarily not be difficult for the bank to comply with CRR, but this has turned out not to be so, as the Kennedy Uzoka-led bank has consistently failed in this regards, according to records obtained from CBN.
Experts Condemn Bank
“The issue became so worrisome for the CBN that at a point, the governor and his team had to find a way out of the problem because at it seems, UBA and few others were not ready to play ball. They are only interested in pushing money out without considering the negative impacts on the economy,” Sanjo Alabi, a financial expert in Lagos said.
While other banks have adjusted to the new reality “UBA is still dragging its feet despite its deposit size as one of the biggest banks in the country. It does not seem the management understands the need to respect regulatory authority,” Alabi said.
He may be right.
UBA Defies President Buhari
This is not the first time the bank has had a brush with the government, watchers of the bank say.
In 2016, UBA ignored President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive that all funds belonging to the federal government should be paid into the Treasury Single Account, TSA.
It was later discovered that the bank had surreptitiously concealed a whopping N58.8 billion belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC from the federal government, for which it was later fined N2.9 billion by CBN as a punishment for the act.
But keen industry players insist that the bank appears not to have learnt a good lesson from that incident considering how bad it has performed with the CRR.
“UBA prides itself as Africa’s Global Bank. With that, one would naturally expect that the bank would show good example to others. But it beats my imagination why it has continued to show disdain for the CBN, knowing that the regulator is working for public good.
Can Elumelu and his protégés flout laws set by other African countries or the United Kingdom, UK where the bank also operates? The answer is very obvious. Its operation will be shut down immediately,” Alabi said.
“We operate in 20 African countries and in the UK and the USA. We also have presence in Paris, France,” the bank said on its website.
Bank Sanctioned By CBN
In April the CBN came down with the hammer by debiting erring banks N459.7 billion.
UBA was worse hit with N82.3 billion debited from its account, according to figures obtained by the magazine.
“UBA alone takes 20 percent of the fine, so one can conveniently say that one fifth of the infraction was committed by the bank,” said Okon Emmanuel, a risk analyst in Lagos.
“Don’t also forget that in May when the CBN debited erring banks N1.4 trillion, the Uzoka-led bank was debited to the tune of N204.7 billion,” he stated.
He said some Tier one banks have made some serious progress to comply with CRR after sanctions were imposed.
“In the last four months, some banks have actually increased their CRR compliance level which has in turn, reduced CBN sanctions,” he stated.
He said in June when the CBN made the deductions “some tier one banks had increased their compliance level as reflected in the sanctions by the apex bank. The combination of Zenith Bank, Access Bank, First Bank and GTB only had their accounts debited by just N91.3 billion.”
He explained further that the more liquidity banks control, the higher their flexibility to engage in unofficial, low risk ventures like round-tripping and other off-the-cuff businesses where they can earn higher returns.
He stated, for instance, that banks often want to keep huge liquidity in order to have enough naira cash to buy forex from the CBN.
Forex Manipulation
“Meanwhile after buying from the CBN, the forex are not made available for legitimate businesses, rather they are sold to bureau de change operators and currency speculators who make swift business after selling at higher rates to unofficial channels such as money launderers and sometimes, terrorists.
“You can now understand the patriotic duty of the CBN in trying to control the volume of naira cash in the kitty of commercial banks at every point in time,” he said.
Recently, an online medium reported a forex scam involving UBA’s Festac Town, Lagos branch manager.
A customer had accused the manager of selling fake dollars to her, in cahoots with a bureau de change operator.
The matter was reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel told the magazine that the CBN adopts CRR and other monetary instruments to control commercial bank’s forex manipulation, adding that the banks, by obligations are supposed to assist the apex bank succeed in this venture, failure which CBN should go beyond the slap on the wrist sanctions.
He said the CBN should blacklists commercial banks frustrating its public spirited efforts.
It must “ensure that banks in the country obey regulatory authorities and stop frustrating government’s efforts to build the economy.”
He noted that “The essence of the forex intervention is to reduce the pressure on the naira. But what normally happens is that banks come with huge forex demands, using their huge naira deposit.
And since the apex bank already realised that forex allocated to banks are not channeled to the real sector of the economy, all it needed to do was to control their naira power.”
He further explained that by using the CRR to reduce cash available to banks “the naira available to them is drastically reduced as such they would not be able to put the CBN under pressure for their forex demands.”
This, apparently, did not sit well with commercial banks which have found it convenient to cut corners, he said.
Initially the CRR deductions were done every month but when the infractions continued on a large scale, the CBN was forced to set up a CRR compliance team, which recommended a weekly deduction as a way of forcing the banks to comply.
Between December 2019 and July 2020, an estimated N4.8 trillion had been debited from bank deposits as CRR.
All efforts made to reach Ramon Nasir, the spokesperson of the bank on his telephone lines, to get his response on the issue were unsuccessful.
Unless the Ondo State Deputy Governor, Agboola Ajayi, wins the October 10 Governorship election, one of the first uncomfortable gifts he will receive is a legal suit against him by Mr Babajide Akeredolu, a son of the incumbent Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN.
He says he would sue Ajayi, the Governorship candidate of the ZLP, as soon as he loses his immunity for an alleged malicious libel against him.
Babajide says Ajayi deliberately called to question his character by maliciously alleging that he, Babajide, got a N430m consulting contract from the Ondo State Government.
Ajayi made the claim during the flag-off of his campaign rally in Ore.
But Babajide, in a strongly worded press statement he personally signed, challenged Ajayi to prove his case. He also, asked Ajayi to strip himself of his immunity and face him in court.
Denying any such consultancy contract, he accused Ajayi of being a list from the pit of hell, and insisted that his allegation was made to ridicule him.
Following is the text of Babajide’s statement:
“My attention has been drawn to the spurious allegations made against me by Hon. Agboola Ajayi, the Gubernatorial candidate of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) during his flag off campaign rally on the 19th of September, 2020 at Ore in Odigbo local government area.
“This deliberate, malicious and mendacious statement has been making the rounds online and on social media platforms.
“The unsubstantiated claim and accusation, designed to mislead the general public and calculated to malign my person for clear political gain, is not only wicked, treacherous and false but clearly most defamatory.
“The allegation, which has been making the round without a face to it has been refuted by the state government when it first surfaced. While I find it imperative to state unambiguously that I do not hold any political office, it is evil and most wicked to make such allegation that exist mainly in the minds of Hon. Agboola, the ZLP candidate and his ilk against me.
“I state with emphasis that it is the greatest disrespect and an intentional distortion of facts for the said Gubernatorial candidate of the ZLP to state inter alia that I siphoned Four hundred and thirty-three million naira of Ondo State’s funds under the disguise of consultancy fees. This allegation which I deny, can only come from someone so lowly and frivolous and unexpected of anyone who holds the high office of a Deputy Governor.
“The statement by Hon. Agboola Ajayi was calculated to disparage my person and credibility and it has caused severe damage to my reputation and professional interests.
“In light of the above, I have instructed my Lawyers to institute legal action against Hon. Agboola Ajayi to claim full damages for the harm the false and malicious statement he made has done to my reputation . He must prove this allegation in the court of law.
“If there is any modicum of honesty in the ZLP candidate, I expect that he shows clear willingness to do the honourable thing by stripping himself of his immunity and accept the court process and prove his claims in court of Law.”
The Ondo State Governorship election holds on October 10. And even though, at least, 14 political parties will participate in the exercise, all eyes are on the candidates of the APC, PDP and the ZLP candidates – Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, Jegede Eyitayo, SAN, and Ajayi.
Ajayi, who is the incumbent Deputy Governor, had defected from the APC to the PDP without resigning from his office as the Deputy Governor.
He was confident of picking the PDP ticket. But when he was defeated by Eyitayo, he defected to the ZLP and became their candidate.
An attempt to impeach him from office, failed. But the immorality of his continous stay in office, is not lost on most people.
As the Super Eagles of Nigeria prepares for the cracker against two African giants, the Carthage Eagles of Tunisia and the Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire Coach Gernot Rohr has rolled out a list that would be part of the team’s first match in 2020.
The Covid-19 Pandemic saw the Super Eagles idle. Now, Rohr is eager to test the ability of his team.
Rohr, the Coach and Technical Adviser, of the National team has called up 25 players ahead of next month’s friendly matches scheduled for Austria.
Five players have been put on standby in case of any sudden withdrawal for any reason.
The team Captain, Ahmed Musa, Kenneth Omeruo, William Ekong and Wilfred Ndidi, top the list of invited players.
Frank Onyeka and Chidera Ejuke are new invitees into the team and would be battle ready to prove their mettle.
2013 Former Under-17 World Cup winning goalkeeper, Dele Alampasu returns to the team, as well as midfielder Mikel Agu.
Captain of the Nigeria Under-17 Golden Eaglets squad to Brazil in 2019, Samson Tijani, will join up with the elite, as well as Portugal-based exciting wing back Zaidu Sanusi.
Goalkeeper Maduka Okoye, now in The Netherlands, is heading to Austria as England-based forward Kelechi Iheanacho also returns.
Victor Osimhen, now in Italy with Napoli, and another former U-17 World Cup winner, Samuel Chukwueze, are also called.
The Super Eagles, now ranked 29th in the world and third in Africa, will take on the Elephants on October 9 and four days later, engage the Carthage Eagles, who are second in Africa in the rankings.
Both games have been arranged by the Nigeria Football Federation to prepare the Eagles for the next rounds of 2022 AFCON qualifiers, home and away against Sierra Leone in November.
The Full List
Goalkeepers: Dele Alampasu (FK Ventspils, Latvia); Matthew Yakubu (SKF Sered, Slovakia); Maduka Okoye (Sparta Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
Less than 24 hours after the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, defeated the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the Governorship polls in Edo State, thus heralding the end of the APC in the South-south, former Delta State Governor, Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan is set to leave the APC.
Uduaghan will be returning to the PDP two years after announcing his defection to the APC due to some political crisis in the Delta State PDP.
The magazine gathered that Uduaghan is returning two years after he dumped the PDP for APC where he unsuccessfully contested for the Delta South Senatorial District election in 2019.
This, it was gathered, was after a series of meetings between him and former Delta State Governor and political stalwart Chief James Onanefe Ibori, incumbent Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and other leaders of the party in the state and at the national level.
Sources in Delta Government House also confirmed that the former Governor met with Governor Okowa in Asaba, the State Capital to cement and put final touches to his return to the PDP fold.
Uduaghan was Delta governor on the PDP platform for eight years and had served as Secretary to the State Government under the Chief Ibori-led administration. He was also a Commissioner for health in the state.
However, following a cold-war between him and some members of the Ibori political dynasty, he defected to APC in August 2018 where he worked for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari and, also, contested for Senate in 2019.
Sources within the Ibori political camp said that the issues that led to Uduaghan’s defection from the party have been addressed and resolved.
The sources also claimed there is no longer political loggerheads or any disagreement between Uduaghan and incumbent Governor, Okowa.
Okowa served as Secretary to the State Government during this democratic dispensation in Delta State before he went to the Senate.
The Source in the Government House told the magazine that, “His Excellency, former Governor Uduaghan is joining us (PDP) soon. A big ceremony is being put in place by Governor Okowa to welcome him back to the family where he rightly belongs. We are happy that our leader is coming back”.
Reacting to the news, Uduaghan, said it was within his right as a senior citizen of the state to visit the House at any time especially being a former governor of the state.
Speaking through his Media Assistant, Mr. Monoyo Edon, he said he was still in APC
He said for a man of his calibre, it was a normal thing for people to say things like that about him.
“As a former Governor, Uduaghan still owes Delta State a duty. Visiting Government House, Asaba, is not enough reason for such conclusions”, he stressed.
Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma has said he had neither made a statement on the outcome of the just ended Edo Governorship Election, nor issued a statement.
On Sunday, September 20, a statement, attributed to the office of his Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser, Mr Oguwuike Nwachuku, had quoted the Governor as boasting that Governor Godwin Obaseki’s victory, will not stand, and that his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, would win back the Governorship seat at the Election Tribunal.
The statement, which went viral, brought a deluge of condemnation against the Uzodinma, including from former Governor Rochas Okorocha who chided him.
But in a strongly worded statement, in which he describe the statement as a forgery, the Governor denied the viral statement, asking why he would do that, and calling those who put out the statement, “criminally minded”.
He also laughed at those who said he squandered the sum of N3bn, and $5m on the Edo Election calling them liars from the pit of hell
He, also, told them “Fake news can’t distract me.”
Following is the full text of the statement, signed by Mr Nwachuku.
“There is a fake report trending on the social media which claims that His Excellency, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, has rejected the recently announced Edo State governorship election result.
“There are yet others where the writers, in their imagination, are feeding the public with questionable amount of money the governor, allegedly, spent on the election in Edo.
“In one of the reports, it was claimed Governor Uzodimma spent N3billion, while a fake Reuters report claims that he spent $5million on Edo Governorship election.
“The writer of the fake Reuters report, one Stan Walden Newyork (obviously a fake name), claimed the money was squandered to appease the ruling party.
“No doubt, the authors of the fake reports are obviously the same characters we have always known who have been signing off press releases using the name and Office of the Chief Press Secretary/ Media Adviser to give their criminal, selfish and foolish intent some measure of credibility.
“The recent Edo State governorship election, like many others in the past involving Distinguished Senator Uzodimma, has provided them with yet another opportunity to feed the public with lies, lies and more lies, a vocation that seems to be their only known source of livelihood.
“In their desperation to discredit Governor Uzodimma on the outcome of the Edo governorship poll, they have cast innuendos; insinuating that he has rejected the outcome of the governorship election and that he had accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of being compromised, and that the All Progressive Congress (APC) will get judgment from the tribunal.
“Their insinuation also includes that the governor said that the entire process was marred by irregularities from INEC officials who, they claimed, sabotaged the system.
“Obviously relying on the position of Governor Uzodimma as the APC Deputy Chairman for the Edo Governorship Campaign Council, the criminal-minded writers of the irritating fake news did not stop at that. They had insinuated that the governor described the entire exercise as shameful.
“If the authors of the fake reports still have some brain in their head, something would have told them that since Governor Uzodimma is neither from Edo nor Chairman of the APC Media Campaign Council, the mischief they were primed to accomplish will not fly. Of course they don’t have sense.
“They were also so daft to know that the governor was not a candidate in the said election and would not have spoken on an election he was not a candidate.
“But they could not have advised themselves rightly because having been paid princely to discredit the Imo State governor, their sense of reasoning would automatically be blurred.
“The hallmark of credible news report is the voice the writer adds to it and Reuters could not have published a report that dwells on hearsay like the one many may have been deceived to think emanated from that respected news medium, but we know, did not.
“To also say that in the buffoonery, nay tomfoolery, of those who said Governor Uzodimma rejected the Edo governorship election result, they signed off with the name of the Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser in a press release purportedly issued on September 19, 2020, but with a template that actually read May 20, 2020, tells a lot about their desperation to blackmail the governor and everything he stands for, using every opportunity at their disposal.
“We have always known, since the coming on board of this administration, about the existence of stuntmen who maintain templates with which they pull off stunts mainly fake news, thinking they will derail the 3-R mantra vision of Governor Uzodimma. That, to us, is mission impossible because the governor knows where he is headed with Imo people.
“Governor Uzodimma’s passion about taking Imo out of the woods, particularly from the grips of political hawks and merchants of blackmail whose umbilical chord seem tied to fake news and other negative tendencies that cause disaffection cannot be derailed.
“He has refused to be distracted, even with the fake news that members of the public are fed with from time to time, because he is quite aware of the reason for them.”
Preliminary reports by the Accidents Investigations Bureau, AIB, on the crashed helicopter at Opebi area of Lagos, is out: There was no fuel in the tank.
Recall that a Bell 206B III Helicopter with nationality and registration numbers 5N-BQW operated by Quorum Aviation Limited (QAL) Helicopter crashed into the roof of a building and a wall fence impacting two vehicles parked in the compound at Salvation Street Opebi on 28th August 2020.
In its initial report released Monday, September 21, 2020, the Bureau said the chopper had no capacity for offloading fuel. But it was found out that there was no fuel in the tank.
The aircraft never applied for an exemption for proficiency check from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA. However, the helicopter was said to have had a valid Certificate of Airworthiness. The Aircraft Maintenance Engineers’ License is Valid till 14th February 2022 and Aircraft Category A&C ratings were also in order:
Agusta/Bell 206, Bell 212, Sikorsky S76, and Eurocopter EC 155 helicopters.
The validity of the Certificate of Airworthiness of the chopper was till 29th October 2020.
“On 27th August 2020, a Bell 206B III helicopter with nationality and registration marks 5N-BQW, operated by Quorum Aviation Limited, was topped up with 247 liters of fuel to full tank capacity on ground Port Harcourt Military airport (DNPM). The technical logbook entry revealed that there was an engine run for 10 minutes and a test flight of 20 minutes in preparation for a positioning flight the next day“, the report read.
“The helicopter was topped to full tank capacity on 27th August 2020. After refueling, 10 minutes of engine run and 20 minutes of test flight were carried out on 27th August 2020 at Port Harcourt. The helicopter was fitted with a range-extender fuel system. No fuel jettisoning capability on this helicopter.
“The helicopter has an endurance of 3:24h. The operational flight plan filed by the pilot indicated an endurance of 3:15h and an estimated flight time of 2:45h. The helicopter engine was started at 09:15h. The helicopter took off at 09:20h. The helicopter crashed at 12:14h. There was no fuel left in the fuel tanks after the crash. The mast and main rotor blades were found intact during the post-crash inspection.”
According to the report, “The Pilot’s last medical examination was valid until 6th August 2020. There was no evidence to show that an application for the exemption provided by the All Operators’ Letter AOL DG020/20 had been submitted to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.
The only three souls on the flight, including the Pilot list their lives in the accident.
Former President Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has commiserated with the Government of Kaduna State, the family and the entire people of Zazzau Emirate over the death of their Emir, Alhaji Shehu Idris.
In a condolence message to the Kaduna State Government and the family of the late Emir, Dr. Jonathan described him as a peace enthusiast and a celebrated custodian of the tradition and culture of his people.
The message said:
“I am deeply saddened by the passing on of the Emir of Zazzau, Alhaji Shehu Idris, who died Sunday at the age of 84.
“I convey my deepest condolences to the Government of Kaduna State, the entire Zazzau emirate and his immediate family over the exit of the very distinguished monarch.
“The late Emir who was the Chairman of the Zazzau Emirate Council was a peace enthusiast and a celebrated custodian of the culture and tradition of his people.
“He made history as a traditional ruler with one of the longest and most eventful reign, having been on the throne for almost half a century. He will be remembered for his role in uniting the people and his efforts towards the peace and security of the nation.
“May God strengthen his family members and other well wishers and grant him soul eternal peace.”
The Emir died on Saturday at the age 84, and was buried same day.
