News Alert! Pandemonium in Lagos as Helicopter explodes, crashes into building

The Eyewitness Reporter

Confusion and panic gripped the residents of Oba Akran area of Lagos when a Helicopter crashed into a resident building in the area.

According to an eyewitness at the scene of the incident, the helicopter crashed into a building located adjacent AP filling station and United Bank of Africa (UBA) and exploded.

The incident, which happened around 3:00 pm Tuesday, caused pandemonium among the residents in the area who ran helter-skelter.

Sources said the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was immediately mobilised to the scene where four persons were rescued from the wreckage.

NEMA’s Lagos Territorial Office Coordinator, Ibrahim Farinloye who confirmed the crash, said rescue operations were ongoing.

He said details were still sketchy, adding that information would be provided as soon as they were available.

Related Topics:featured Helicopter crashes

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NANTA’ visits to Turkey yields results as Turkish ambassador announces ease of visa regime

The Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Mehmet Poroy

– targets trade boost with Nigeria

Gloria Odion

Barely a week after the leadership of National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) returned from a trade penetration and visa regime advocacy visit to Istanbul, the Ambassador of the Türkiye to Nigeria, Mr. Mehmet Poroy, has announced that the stringent visa ecosystem of Türkiye would henceforth be eased to encourage travel, tourism, and trade between the two countries.

NANTA, led by its President, Mr. Yinka Folami, during the Istanbul trade tour, had impressed it on the minds of the Turkish Travels Association Leadership (TURSAB) that the visa regimes of the Türkiye nation are hurting trade and tourism visits by Nigerians and solicited interventions by the influential Türkiye travel trade group to ease the pain.

Speaking at the Turkiye culinary week in Abuja last week, the Ambassador stated that his country would relax the visa regime, noting that Nigeria and Türkiye have a lot to benefit from open trade in commerce and tourism, with Turkiye government targeting about five billion US dollars trade boost, and a forty billion US dollars target from the African continent, at the implementation of ease of visa regimes and engagement by the two nations and Africa in general.

NANTA President, excited by the response of the Türkiye Ambassador to Nigeria, urged the Nigerian government to quickly address the visa regime concerns of the Türkiye travel trade and business community wishing to also visit and do business with Nigeria, reiterating NANTA’s desire and advocacy to open and invite the world to Nigeria.

“We at NANTA are excited by the prompt response of the Türkiye Ambassador in Nigeria to our request during our marketing and promotion penetration visit to Istanbul.

“We did not do this alone as we see the new development as a supportive gesture from the Turkish Travel Association leadership and Turkish Airlines management.

“Without their their support, our advocacy visit would have just been another wasted opportunity and rhetorics exercise.”

Meanwhile, about 90 registered members of the association arrived Banjul, Gambia in early hours of Tuesday morning to the warm embrace of the drumming of Cultural Troupe here, with the state immigration officials, making sure the Nigerian travel trade professionals have a stress-free entry into the smiling coast of Africa.

The group, on a week training and retraining exposure expedition, was flown into Gambia by Air Peace, the official carrier for the association, which also announced other partners such as the Djeliba group – owners of four exclusive luxury beach resorts; the Kombo, the Tamala, Halifax, and the Balafon Apartment and Tanala Voyage.

The Gambia Tourism Board is the host partner, while The Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute facilitated the training certification programme.

Aviation

Keyamo approves relocation of FAAN back to Lagos ,says staying in Abuja is waste of public funds.

Keyamo

The Eyewitness Reporter

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has explained the reasons why he approved the relocation of the Headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) back to Lagos.

In a press statement signed Mrs. Obiageli Orah, Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, Keyamo explained that the initial relocation of FAAN headquarters from Lagos, from where it had been operating decades ago, was ill-advised which he said amounted to a waste of public funds.

The Minister further explained that those affected by the initial decision to move the agency’s headquarters to Abuja have since returned to Lagos as there was no office space for them in Abuja.

“We have noted the inquiries some Nigerians have made regarding the directive of the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, to relocate the corporate Headquarters of FAAN from Abuja to its original base, Lagos, where it has operated for decades until recently.

“FAAN wishes to inform Nigerians that following wide consultations by the new Management of FAAN with stakeholders, which also involved the Unions, it was agreed that this was in the best interest of the Authority and the country for now for the following reasons:

“It was ill-advised in the first place to move the headquarters to Abuja when there was no single FAAN building in Abuja to accommodate all of them at once.

” Those affected by the initial decision to move the agency’s headquarters to Abuja have since returned to Lagos as there is no office space for them in Abuja

“Having returned to Lagos, the Authority would be liable to pay them DTA (DUTY TOUR ALLOWANCE) because technically they are working OUT OF STATION as their official posting is to ABUJA.

“The Minister has decided to stop this waste of public resources and rip-off on the public purse.

⁠”The other option open to the Authority was abandon the old FAAN building in Lagos to rot away and to use its scarce resources to rent an office space in Abuja for Millions of Naira of public money when in actual fact more than sixty percent of its activities are in Lagos given the huge passenger volume of the Lagos airports.

“The stakeholders and the Minister decided against that and to save the country this waste.

“The Minister has rolled out plans to get concessionaires to build befitting offices for the Authority in Lagos and Abuja and until that is done, the Authority will continue to manage its old building in Lagos that can accommodate all its Directors and senior officials for now.

“⁠Abuja continues to have full operational offices and the Authority has not scaled down operations in Abuja one bit.

“It is just the technical decision of where the Authority has its ‘corporate headquarters’ that has been taken without affecting the structure of operations as they are for now in both cities.

” ⁠In the near future, when befitting corporate buildings have been built for the Authority in both Lagos and Abuja, a final decision will be taken as to the location of the permanent headquarters, depending on the exigencies of the time.

“The Authority wishes to assure members of the public that it will continue to act in the best interest of the public and the country.

“The Honourable Minister is committed to making decisions that are in the best interest of the country, especially as it concerns public funds and will not yield to ethnic or sectional sentiments that will derail this commitment”, the statement concluded.

Aviation

Sirika, former Aviation minister, ‘jets’ into DSS custody over Air Nigeria controversial project

Hadi Sirika

The Eyewitness Reporter

The Department of State Services (DSS) has caught up with Hadi Sirika, the former Minister of Aviation over the controversial Air Nigeria project.

The former Aviation minister was taken into the custody of the secret police for questioning on the national carrier project widely believed to be a scam.

He was said to have reported himself to the DSS office in Abuja Thursday in a Range Rover SUV after which he was reportedly grilled for several hours over the failed project.

Sirika had, at the twilight of his tenure, went through what was later discovered to be a charade when he launched the multi-million dollar national air carrier, Air Nigeria.

The lid on what has now been described as a scam ”launch” was blown open by the Acting Managing Director of Nigeria Air, Captain Dapo Olumide, who admitted that the plane that was unveiled as Air Nigeria was a chartered aircraft from Ethiopian Airlines.

Olumide had told the stunned members of the Senate Committee on Aviation that the aircraft was leased from Ethiopian Airlines and merely used to unveil the Air Nigeria logo as the real Air Nigeria project was yet to be operational.

The plane that was unveiled was confirmed to be over 10 years old and had previously been operated by Ethiopian Airlines and Malawi Airlines.