Ibom Airlines has apologized to passengers for the delay they experienced when their staff tried to disembark a passenger who caused a scene on one of their aircrafts.
In a video that has gone viral on social media, the man stood in between the passengers’ seat in the middle of the aircraft and could be heard threatening that 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.
Ibom Airlines has now apologized to passengers for the delay they experienced while the incident lasted.
The Group Manager, Marketing and Communication, Aniekan Essienette, in a press statement posted on their Twitter page on Saturday, addressed the incident.
He said: “We wish to inform the public about an incident on our 6pm flight from Abuja to Lagos on Friday, March 31, 2023.
“A passenger stood up and began addressing other passengers in a manner considered inappropriate and unruly, as he was making other passengers nervous.
“Our crew deemed his continuous unruly behaviour unsafe and called on airport security to help with the situation. Upon his refusal to stop or disembark peacefully, the security operatives were left with no choice but to forcefully disembark the passenger as a last option.
“We are aware that several videos and reports of this incident are circulating on social media and wish to provide the right perspective.
“Ibom Air wishes to assure our passengers that we maintain very high safety and service standards and will never compromise the safety and security of our passengers.
“We apologise to the affected passengers for the time it took to disembark this passenger, which caused an otherwise on-time departure to be delayed by an hour.”
