The teenage stowaway, Daniel Ihekina, who was
arrested at the Lagos Airport after flying in the tyre
hole of an Arik plane from Benin to Lagos on Saturday
morning, thought he was on a US-bound flight.
A source at the Benin Airport who disclosed this said
the boy’s parents had already departed for Lagos in search of the stowaway.
The airport source, who did not want his name in print
said, “From what we heard, the boy said he was being
maltreated and tried to escape from his parents. He
thought he was on his way to the US.
“The parents have travelled to Lagos by road, to get him back.”
Meanwhile, investigations conducted by one of our
correspondents in Lagos revealed that the boy had
been handed over to the operatives of the State
Security Services for further investigation.
The General Manager, Corporate Communications, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Mr. Yakubu Dati,
who also confirmed the development, said the
aviation security personnel of the agency had handed
over the young voyager to the men of the SSS for
extensive investigation.
Dati said, “The residential address the boy gave to us was traced to a church in Benin by our airport
manager and his team. So, there is need to hand over
the teenager to the SSS who are experts in such
investigations. They will carry out further investigation
on the matter.”
The FAAN spokesman said the nature and circumstances surrounding the crime informed the
agency decision to hand over the stowaway to the
SSS operatives.
Meanwhile, following the Benin Airport incident, FAAN
has adopted the ‘risk amelioration processes to
safeguard flight operations’ at all its 22 airports across the country.
Dati stressed that the agency had tightened its risk
amelioration procedure to ensure that similar incident
did not occur again.
