Oando Plc Favour Ifeoluwa & Akinola Ajibade Oando Plc says it has completed and won the bid for the operatorship of oil block KON 13 in Angola. The firm which recently acquired Eni of Italy’s oil assets in Nigeria, said that the award of the oil block located in Angola’s onshore Kwanza Basin followed a competitive bidding process by the country’s oil and gas sector regulator. It further said hat the asset in which it owns 45 per cent participating interest, has estimated prospective resources of 770 to 1,100 million barrels of oil. Oando is handling its operations relating to the asset through its upstream subsidiary, Oando Energy Resources (OER). “Oando Plc, Africa’s leading indigenous energy solutions provider listed on both the Nigerian Exchange Limited and Johannesburg Stock Exchange is pleased to announce that its upstream subsidiary, Oando Energy Resources (OER), has been awarded operatorship of Block KON 13 in Angola’s Onshore Kwanza Basin, following a...
By Akinola Ajibade
International flights, were yesterday, prevented from landing or taking off at the Murtala Muhammed Airport.
The development, which affected the international wing of the nation's flagship airport was caused by the mangled body of a dead man found on Runaway 18R of the airport.
Neither can the identity of the corpse be ascertained nor the cause of death of the man as at of press time. While some airport officials thought that the man was probably knocked down by an aircraft taking off, others differs, as they said that the aircraft might be landing on the runaway, when the incident happened.
News Mirror gathered that the runway was temporarily shut down while a team of officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigeria Police Force evacuated the corpse from the runway.
During the temporary shutdown of the runway, international flights were prevented from landing and taking off from the airport’s international terminal.
Among the flights that could not land due to the shutdown was an Ethiopian Airlines flight 3907, a Boeing 77F aircraft with registration number ETAVN, which was coming from Lome, Togo to Lagos, Nigeria.
The flight was later diverted back to Lome after holding for a while.
Airport officials said the corpse was suddenly found on Runway 18R during a routine runway inspection by FAAN personnel.
The officials were said to have reported a corpse on the runway around the cargo area.
The spokesperson for FAAN, Mrs. Faithful Avokerie Hope-Ivbaz, could not immediately confirm the incident, saying she had yet to be briefed on the development.
Also, the Police Public Relations Officer, Airport Command, Mr Olayinka Ojelade, said he had yet to get the requited signal on the incident.
He promised to get back. As of the time of filing this report, he had yet to do so. However, a top police official at the MMIA confirmed the development.
He said the command was called upon in the early hours of Thursday to evacuate the corpse from Runway 18R.
According to him, the police are still investigating the identity of the dead man and how he got to the security area of the international airport.
However, an aviation security expert and former Military Commandant of the MMIA, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retd.), said there was a need to investigate how the unidentified man found his way into the sensitive area of the airport, describing the incident as a major security breach.
According to him, the perimeter fence of the MMIA is not a security fence, adding that this has exposed the airport to various security breaches.
Ojikutu said, “The authorities need to investigate how the man got to the airport. Nobody can say much now; but he may have been knocked down by the wingspan or undercarriage of a jumbo jet but it is too early to say anything like that now. But we need to examine the issue of houses that have been built too close to the Lagos airport. The rule says no building should be situated less than six metres to the airport structure or fence. However, we have seen cases of people crossing the runway before.
“The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and FAAN need to investigate this to ascertain what really happened. They need to find out the flights that landed before that incident. The current airport perimeter fence is not a security fence and we need to do something about it.”
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