The remains of the Late Governor of Kaduna State, Patrick
Yakowa, and that of his aide and friend, Dauda Tsoho, arrived in Kaduna airport
aboard a Nigerian Air Force cargo plane at 2.45pm on Tuesday.
The bodies were received by hundreds of wailing sympathisers
who thronged the airport.
Bodies of the late governor as well as those of other four, out
of the six victims of Saturday’s naval helicopter crash in Okorobo, Bayelsa
State, had been airlifted from Yenagoa aboard a Nigerian Air Force Super Puma
Helicopter marked NAF 567 at 11.45am.
The other bodies that left Yenagoa alongside that of Yakowa and
Tsoho were those of an ex-National Security Adviser Gen. Owoye Azazi’s
bodyguard, Warrant Officer Mohammed Kamal; and the two naval pilots, Commander
Murtala Mohammed Daba, and Lt. Adeyemi Sowole.
The PUNCH learnt
that the NAF aircraft stopped at the Port Harcourt airport in Rivers State
where the bodies were flown to different destinations in different aircrafts.
Yakowa and the four, as well as Azazi, were victims of the
crashed Augusta 109 Naval Helicopter in Okoroba, Bayelsa State, on Saturday.
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They met their death while returning from the burial of the
father of President Goodluck Jonathan’s aide, Oronto Douglas. Douglas is
Jonathan’s Adviser on Research, Documentation and Strategy.
The remains of Azazi, an indigene of Bayelsa, were however left
in the mortuary of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, for burial on a date
yet to be announced by the government.
While the bodies of Yakowa and Tsoho were airlifted from Port
Harcourt to Kaduna, those of Daba and Sowole were taken to their
respective home states in Kano and Lagos.
Two black caskets with silver handles bore Yakowa’s and Tsoho’s
remains while three brown caskets with golden handles contained the bodies of
three others.
The caskets which were covered with the Nigerian flags were
accompanied by Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson; his wife, Rachel;
Deputy Governor John Douglas; a former governor of the state, Diepreye
Alameiseigha; commissioners and other members of the state executive council.
At the special valedictory session in honour of Yakowa at the
Executive Chambers of the Government House before the late governor’s remains
departed the state, were also the Flag Officer Commanding, Central Naval
Command, Rear Admiral Johnson Olutoyin; commanders of the Air Force Mobility
Command, the Joint Task Force, and the state Commissioner of Police, Mr.
Kingsley Omire, among others.
Dickson poured encomiums on the late Yakowa, describing him as a
bridge builder and humble governor.
Some chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, including the
aides of the late Yakowa, attended the ceremony.
Dickson, who said Yakowa died in active service, added that his
death should encourage people to live in peace and harmony.
In Kaduna, children, women as well as men wailed as the
delegation from Bayelsa State, led by Alamieseigha, formally handed over the
corpses of Yakowa and his aide to top Kaduna State government functionaries.
At the Kaduna airport to receive the corpses were the new
Governor of the state, Mukhtar Yero; Yakowa’s widow, Amina; Senator Danjuma
Goje; Senator Bola Saraki; and top state functionaries.
The Catholic Archbishop of Kaduna Diocese, Archbishop Matthew
Man Oso Ndagoso; and the Catholic Bishop of Zaria, Rev George Jonathan Dodo,
took turns to pray for the remains of the late governor and his aide before the
caskets were transferred into an Hilux ambulance.
From the airport, the two golden caskets were driven in a
motorcade through the Nnamdi Azikiwe Western Bypass to the Saint Gerard
Catholic Hospital where the corpses were deposited in the mortuary.
The Senate President, David Mark, in company with his wife,
Helen, was at the St. Gerard Hospital. He later proceeded to the Government
House to pay condolence to Yakowa’s family.
The late governor is expected to be buried on Thursday in his
home town, Fadan Kagoma in Jema’a Local Government Area of the state.
Meanwhile, one of the soldiers that moved the bodies of
Yakowa and the others from the morgue into the helicopter slumped shortly after
the assignment, thus causing panic and anxiety among those at the venue.
The state medical team however revived the soldier, whose
name could not be ascertained, several minutes after.
The collapsed soldier was among the two groups of soldiers who
took turns to lift the caskets bearing the bodies of the victims into the Air
Force helicopter.
Each group, under the command of a parade commander, was made up
of six soldiers.
The collapsed soldier who apparently was exhausted after the
assignment slumped and was immediately rushed into an ambulance belonging to
the Nigerian Air Force Mobility Command at 10.40am.
The ambulance consequently rushed the soldier to the Government
House Medical Centre, where a medical team battled to revive him.
Culled from PUNCH
sad.........R.I.P
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