An apparent terror attack was averted last Friday, November 28, 2015 when at 3.00pm local time, a Benin City-bound ARIK Flight was delayed for over two hours at Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Three suspicious men were said to have boarded the aircraft using the same identity cards. An eye witness who remains worried that Nigeria’s security services have remained silent over the foiled plot narrated what he saw and posed questions on the ambivalent silence from the Nigeria authorities. His words:
“Three very hard to describe miscreants who positioned themselves in front, mid and back seats. The middle aged men were without valid Identity Cards and looked rather haggard. If not for the curious personnel who took notice of their bearing the same “Yahaya”, only God knows what would have happened in that aircraft conveying passengers majority of whom were Judicial Officers returning to South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria after the week-long Judges’ Conference. For over a week after this uncommon incident, I am still waiting to hear about it from any quarters. What’s wrong with my fellow Nigerians? Who checked in three passengers with one ID Card? What was their mission? Is their arraignment going to be celebrated as usual and then reported as success? How many more are about to board other aircrafts? Can any reasonable measure been taken to change the security personnel on duty those hours in question? What could they have used to make the airport security to look away before they boarded the 3pm Benin-bound ARIK Flight? Is any person about to voluntarily resign as a result of this lapse?”
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