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Flight to Uyo:Sule Lamido's
delegation in aborted landing
Newsdiaryonlione
Thur Oct 6,2011
Fear and tension gripped
a 24 man delegation of Jigawa State to Akwa Ibom today as heavy
rainfall and poor visibility made landing impossible for the
chartered flight conveying the delegation to the installation of
Alhaji Najib Husseini Adamu, the Emir of Kazaure as the
Chancellor of Akwa Ibom State University, Uyo.
The delegation being led
by Governor Sule Lamido had to hover in the air for quite
sometime before turning back to land in Kano in order not to run
out of aviation fuel. In all, the delegation spent Three hours,
forty six minutes in the air from Kano to Akwa Ibom and back to Kano. That is One Hour and forty minutes
flight time each to and from Akwa Ibom and the remainder for the
hovering and maneuvering in the change of flight direction.
This correspondent
learnt that trouble started earlier when the flight ran into
some turbulence after take off from
Kano. Although the pilot had announced
during the take-off briefing that the flight would encounter
turbulence at some point before Abuja but that it was nothing to
worry about, the actual turbulence still caught some members of
the delegation off guard as some were so uncomfortable they had
to change seat as if changing seat would change anything if
there was a descent into nothingness.
When contacted, Lamido’s
Director of Press, Alhaji Umar Kyari, played down the entire
experience by saying that the delegation had since returned
safely to Dutse. Some members of the delegation who spoke to
this reporter described the flight in the 30-seater Dornier
aircraft as a stable one except for the aborted landing.
Aside from Governor Sule
Lamido, other members of the delegation included the Speaker of
the Jigawa State House of Assembly, Adamu Ahmed, Hon Ibrahim
Suleiman Gwiwa Ubandoma, a traditional title holder in Kazaure
emirate and member of the state House of Assembly, the Secretary
to the Jigawa State Government, Alhaji Lawan Abdu, the Head of
Service, Mustapha Aminu and the Chief of Staff, Aminu Ibrahim,
three commissioners viz Finance, Health and Special Duties, a
Special Adviser to the governor and the governor’s security
details.
The installation of the
Emir as the Chancellor which was stood down while the Jigawa
delegation was in the air eventually took place and was watched
live on NTA by some members of the delegation.
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