Two officials of the AirPeace ground staff were thoroughly rough-handled by men of the Nigerian Air Force for trying to do their job at Sam Mbakwe Cargo Airport Owerri on Monday.
Their offence was their insistence on due process, that an Air Force Commodore should be screened before boarding the aircraft in line with the operational rules.
The chaos that followed would have disrupted flight operations at the airport last Monday, if not for the discipline of the AirPeace ground staff who carefully managed the offensive scenario and averted serious fallouts.
Uneze Camilus and Mbajiogu Chimezie, staff of AirPeace were shoved around and roughed up by armed Air Force operatives, for doing their job.
While Uneze was poked in the chest many times, Chimezie had his medicated eye glasses torn from his face and crushed underfoot by one of the raging AirForce men.
The AirForce senior officer took the mayhem even further by ordering the withdrawal of all AirForce personnel from their duty posts at the airport, back to their base. Our correspondent at the airport gathered that the withdrawal was reversed, hours later.
It was during the boarding of the airline’s first flight from Owerri to Abuja, when the AirPeace officials were at the tarmac conducting the final screening before boarding, that the muscle flexing by the Air Force men began.
Air Commodore Idorenyen F. Bassey, who was in uniform, had arrived from the protocol lounge to board the flight.
Not quite long after, Mr Uneze who was screening passengers approached him for the screening but the Air Commodore walked away, and told Uneze that he was embarrassing him by attempting to screen him. He walked on to the plane and forced himself into the aircraft without being fully screened.
Uneze, careful not to confront the senior officer and a customer, went up to the Captain of the aircraft and informed him of the incident.
The flight Captain addressed the Air Commodore and explained to him that his rank does not exempt him from being screened, that the exercise was for collective good.
Rather than heed the Captain, the senior officer’s Orderly placed a call to his colleagues and not too long after, six other Air Force personnel drove to the tarmac area in a vehicle and parked close to the outbound aircraft.
They ordered Uneze to enter the vehicle. He obeyed. He was whisked away to the Security Department of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN), and while inside the vehicle, he was assaulted and poked on the chest several times by one of the Air Force operatives.
While concerned Nigerians gathered to pacify the angry Air Commodore who said he was no longer making the trip to return to the aircraft and forestall the chances of taking the AirPeace staff members to the Air Force Base, one of the Air Force personnel who identified Chimezie as one of those who ’embarrassed’ their boss, snatched Chimezie’s medicated eye glasses, threw it on the floor and crushed it underfoot.
According to Chimezie who documented his statement at the FAAN Security Office, “We did nothing wrong. We were only doing our job.”
The flight, marked number P47151 which was scheduled for departure at around 8:40am eventually left for Abuja around 9.10, after the back and forth that followed the Air Commodore’s return to the aircraft.
