Igbokoda: Is Our Sky Unsafe For Nigerian Air Force Planes?, By Kazeem Akintunde
Igbokoda, a coastal town and the administrative headquarters of Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo state was in the news last week, following the crash of a Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 military aircraft with tail number NGR 931 in the community. The plane, travelling from Benin City to Lagos, with 25 people on board, crashed into a swampy area directly opposite the Igbokoda Naval Base.
Locals who witnessed the crash have praised the yeo-man efforts of the pilots of the aircraft, saying that they did all within their power to avoid houses, markets, and other populated areas which could have led to more devastation on the ground.
Igbokoda has a population of over 30,000 inhabitants. As the unserious nation that we are when it comes to planning, the exact population of Igbokoda and that of the country is still in the realm of guesswork, with the last headcount in Nigeria carried out in 2006 – 20 years ago.
The town is mainly populated by the Ilaje people. It sits on a swampy, riverine landscape characterized by extensive waterways and mangrove forests. While some parts are on arable land, many surrounding dwellings are traditionally built on ironwood stilts over water. Due to its strategic waterfront location, Igbokoda’s economy centres tightly around commercial fishing, fish processing, maritime transport, and regional trading. It was not a surprise when some of the locals who were in their fishing boats got to the crash site immediately the plane went down. But they found just body parts and no survivors. Pieces of the plane and other personal effects of the victims littered the entire vicinity. There are speculations that the plane exploded on impact. Among the dead were Squadron Leader M.I. Aburime, the flight captain; Squadron Leader A.P. Man-Ugwueje, Flight Lieutenant I.S. Bako, co-pilots, and 20 passengers, whose names now sit in a condolence register at NAF headquarters in Abuja – names like Flight Lieutenant T.L. Lazarus, Sergeant Ani A.E., Mrs. Ezeh Nneka, Godstmine Tarabina, Joy Micheal, and so on.
President Bola Tinubu has ordered an investigation and declared three days of national mourning. “This is a painful moment for our Armed Forces and for the entire nation,” he said. “Our Air Forces personnel put their lives on the line every day to secure Nigeria. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.” Appropriate and familiar words uttered by leaders during tragic situations and which citizens are tired of hearing. Can’t we ensure that our Air Force planes and helicopters stop dropping from the sky like deflated balloons? Because it is looking as if our sky ‘hates’ and ejects our Air force jets, planes, and helicopters due to the frequency of their crashing out of our skies.
In the last 11 years, Nigeria’s military aviation has recorded at least 19 crashes, killing more than 60 personnel and civilians. It is either fighter jets, helicopters, training aircraft, transport aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles. These events occur either during combat operations, training exercises, routine missions, casualty evacuations, or post-maintenance checks.
The Igbokoda disaster is not an aberration. It is the latest entry in a pattern so consistent that it has become almost ritualistic: a crash, a presidential condolence, a promised investigation, a period of national mourning, and then silence, till the next disaster happens.
Eleven years ago, a Dornier 228 crashed into a military cantonment in Kaduna, killing seven people. In 2021, a Beechcraft King Air went down near Abuja after an engine failure, killing seven people. Two months later, another King Air crashed near Kaduna, killing 11 people, including the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru. In 2023, an Mi-171 helicopter crashed during a casualty evacuation mission in Niger State, killing four people. On December 6, 2025, just ten months before the Igbokoda incident, an Alpha Jet crashed during a post-inspection test flight in Niger State. Luckily, this time, both pilots ejected safely, but the aircraft was destroyed.
Two days after the Igbokoda accident, another Nigerian Air Force (NAF) T-129AK combat helicopter executed an emergency landing on a farmland in the Utur Tse-Igboji community of Makurdi, Benue State.
If there is a commercial airline that has such a record, nobody will fly it again. In fact, I won’t be found 100 meters close to the airline. In Nigeria, once an airline suffers a crash, they almost never recover. They just simply fade away. We painfully remember Dana Air Flight 0992 that crashed on June 3, 2021 into a neigbourhood in Iju-Ishaga, Lagos, resulting in the deaths of all 153 people on board and six others on the ground. Similarly, the Bellview Airlines Flight 210, a Boeing 737 that crashed near Lissa on October 23, 2005, killing all 177 people on board. Also, the ADC Airline Flight 053, a Boeing 737-200 that crashed shortly after take-off from Abuja on October 29, 2006, killing 96 of the 105 people on board. These three airlines have since gone under.
The human and financial losses to Air force planes and helicopter crashes are staggering. Nigeria has lost aircraft worth billions of Naira to crashes. But that is nothing compared to the loss of human lives, which is one too many. Thirty-three military personnel have been recorded killed in 14 crashes between 2015 and 2023. Sixteen more in 2023 alone. And now 25 in a single day in the latest incident in Ondo State, which has befittingly intensified calls by aviation stakeholders for a comprehensive review of military aviation safety systems, including aircraft maintenance, airworthiness standards, operational procedures, safety oversight, and accident investigation.
Indeed, it will be foolish to keep recording the frequency of military aircraft accidents which has become the bane of Air Force operations in Nigeria rather than an urgent review of its safety systems as a proactive and preventive measure. Nigeria as a nation cannot continue losing our service men and public assets in the misguided belief that all is well with the military or us as a nation. If the frequent crashes are due to inadequate funds for the maintenance of the operated aircraft, now is the time for the Air force Chief to speak out. We cannot continue to lose human lives and national assets and expect all of us to sleep facing the same direction. The African Democratic Congress is asking the questions that many officials in our government are not willing to answer. Where are the monies meant for the maintenance of those aircraft? According to figures the opposition party cited, as of December 2025, only N4.5 billion – about 13.98 per cent – of the N34.71 billion budgeted for Nigerian Air Force aircraft maintenance has actually been released.
By contrast, the Presidential Air Fleet received N20.27 billion of its N20.74 billion allocation, a 97.76 per cent release rate. Simply put, the ADC said, “while the fleet that serves a handful of people in power got almost every kobo it asked for, the fleet that serves and protects 200 million Nigerians was left with crumbs.’’ The party’s conclusion was blunt: “Patriotism does not replace spare parts, and condolence messages do not take the place of accountability.”
While the ADC’s figures have not been independently verified, they align with a decade of complaints about underfunded maintenance and aging equipment in the military. Former Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano, called for the Igbokoda investigation to examine “the aircraft’s maintenance history, operational procedures, and other factors that may have contributed to the crash,” adding: “The true measure of an investigation is whether its lessons prevent another family from enduring the same loss.” True, but why does it sound like medicine after death?
There is a further complication in the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB)’s inability to independently investigate the Igbokoda crash unless formally invited by the military to do so. Under the NSIB Establishment Act of 2022, military aviation accidents fall outside the bureau’s statutory mandate. The NSIB does not, and cannot investigate military accidents unless formally invited by that authority. That schedule falls under the purview of the Military that has the power to set up an internal Board of Inquiry or an investigation panel such as, in this case, the Nigerian Air Force or the Defence Headquarters. Almost a week after the crash, the NSIB has not been invited to be part of the investigation into what went wrong with the latest crash at Igbokoda. The tragedy is still being treated as a military affair.
The troubling aspect of this is that in Nigeria, the military’s investigations have a record of producing findings that are never publicly released. The 2018 F-7Ni mid-air collision over Abuja during Independence Day rehearsals was investigated. The 2021 King Air crash that killed the Army Chief was investigated. The 2023 Mi-171 crash was investigated. But the public knows almost nothing about the findings of those investigations. Now is the time for the Air force to be more transparent by telling Nigerians what findings were unearthed. We cannot continue to pretend as if all is well.
This is time for our top military brass in the Air Force to confront their nose-diving peacetime record, urgently discuss and implement effective strategies, and do better. Some of them have said that Nigeria being at war with Boko Haram and other insurgent groups necessitates more operations and missions. However, even to a layman on the streets, Air Force accidents should not be, or surpass those of commercial airlines given their expertise. If the Nigerian Air Force were to be a commercial airline, nobody would fly their inventory or fleet. We cannot continue to lose the souls of our military officers and continue to treat it as a military affair. The nation spends huge amounts of tax payers’ money to train its military men. Billions of our monies are used to acquire assets. Allowing them to drop from the sky at every market day does not bode well for our national peace and image. To lay the allegation of insufficient allocation of funds by the ADC and the strong belief by most Nigerians that the allocated funds are mismanaged or diverted, our Commander-in-Chief and lawmakers should do something. And fast.
My heart goes out to families of all the victims of these tragedies, especially Flight Lieutenant Damilola Adekunle, who has suffered the unimaginable tragedy of losing both her father and her newlywed husband to separate Nigerian Air Force plane crashes exactly 20 years apart. She lost her father, Wing Commander E.O Adekunle, the pilot of the ill-fated NAF Dornier 228 transport aircraft that went down in Vandeikya, Benue State, on September 17, 2006.
Inspired by her late dad, Damilola also joined the Air Force, where she met her husband, Squadron Leader Ahamefule Aham Man-Ugwueje, the now deceased co-pilot of the ill-fated NAF 931 that went down in Igbokoda, Ondo State. They had got married just two weeks ago in Abuja. May the souls of those who died in last week’s Igbokoda plane crash rest with the Lord.
See you next week.
