Five days after a Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 aircraft, NAF 931, went down in Igbokoda, Ondo State, killing all 25 people on board, the family of Sergeant Aisekegbe Esther Ani is still waiting for a single official phone call.
Despite being listed as his sister’s next of kin, her brother said he had received no official communication from the Air Force since the incident. That silence, he said, is not accidental. He has accused the Nigerian Air Force of flying a faulty aircraft and misleading the public about the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
In a video obtained on Sunday, the victim’s brother said his sister’s final messages to him indicated that the aircraft had developed what she described as a “snag” and had stopped in Benin City, Edo State, for checks before continuing its journey.
According to him, the aircraft had travelled from Abuja and stopped in Benin on Sunday night following the reported technical problem. The Air Force told a different story. The service said the aircraft was on a routine mission from Benin City, Edo State, to Lagos when the accident occurred.
The brother disputed that account, insisting the journey had started in Abuja, not Benin. He said the discrepancy is the core of what he calls a deliberate attempt to reframe a preventable disaster. He said the messages his sister sent him formed part of the evidence he intended to present to support his claims about the circumstances surrounding the crash.
“Who flies a faulty aircraft? The Nigerian Air Force. They flew a faulty aircraft that crashed, and now they lied about it,” he said in the video. His words have since spread widely across social media, drawing fresh attention to how the Air Force has characterized the incident.
“There is damage control everywhere,” he said, alleging that the incident had been avoidable and has plunged his family and those of other military personnel and civilians into mourning.
“One is that the aircraft was bad. The aircraft was coming from Abuja to Lagos, and there was a snag. A snag is a technical error that needs to be checked, and it stopped in Benin. They asked them to wait until it was fixed,” he alleged.
He also questioned who authorized the aircraft to continue its journey, calling on the Air Force to explain the circumstances under which it proceeded to Lagos. “Who was the commander that commanded this aircraft to be moved to Lagos?” he asked.
“I lost my sister, who is a sergeant in the Nigerian Air Force, to this tragic incident caused by the Nigerian Air Force,” he added. Beyond the grief, he said, is a question the institution has not answered: who cleared NAF 931 for departure after the reported fault was flagged.
One source claimed that the aircraft might have been cleared to fly without adequate checks following maintenance in Benin and further alleged that the officer responsible for the aircraft’s inspection failed to exercise due diligence.
The allegations have yet to be independently verified, and the Nigerian Air Force has cautioned against speculation, insisting that the cause of the crash can only be established after a thorough investigation. No timeline for that investigation has been made public.
Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Sunday Aneke led senior Air Force officials to the crash site in Igbokoda on Thursday to assess ongoing search, recovery, and investigative operations and expressed condolences to the families of the deceased on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Aneke promised that the Air Force would thoroughly investigate the cause of the crash. The victim’s brother, however, said a promise is not enough. He wants to know who gave the go-ahead for the flight to continue despite the reported mechanical issue and is calling for a full investigation into the decisions made before the Nigerian Air Force crash.
