Airline evacuates passenger over anti-Tinubu threats

01 Apr Airline evacuates passenger over anti-Tinubu threats

A passenger was on Friday evacuated from an Ibom Air flight over alleged threats making the rounds against Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Tinubu. In a video on social media, the man stood in between the passengers’ seat in the middle of the aircraft and could be heard threatening that Mr Tinubu must not be sworn in as Nigerian president next month.

“You all are sitting here, and Tinubu is about to be sworn in as President. Tinubu must never be sworn in. He must never be President,” he said.

“I am a PhD holder in law and I’ll keep saying what I am saying.”

His conducts and utterances attracted the attention of other passengers aboard the flight, while some other passengers asked him go to court.

“Instead of going off this plane, you will go down,” the unidentified man told another passenger who challenged him to disembark from the aircraft.

In the midst of the melee, some airport security officials evacuated the man from the aircraft.

While trying to resist attempt to evacuate him, the man screamed: “Obidients! You are looking… Obidients!”

‘Obidients’ refers to the collective name adopted by supporters of the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi.

However, it remains unclear as of press time Saturday morning whether the man is a supporter of the LP flagbearer.

Aniekan Essienette, Ibom Air’s Group Manager, Marketing and Communications said that the airline is aware of the incident, adding that security officials had to evacuate the man from the aircraft for “security reasons”.