By SUNNY OKIM

The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has formally reacted to a story published in News Express on Sunday, August 16 with headline :

"Passenger's missing N78m found in FAAN manager son's bank account"

In a statement issued by FAAN signed by the General Manager Corporate Affairs, Henrietta Yakubu, dated August 17 and made available to News Express, the federal agency says no passenger had lost any sum of money.

"The attention of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has been drawn to a report making rounds on a passenger's missing N78m found in an account of a top management staff's son," the statement said.

Continuing, Yakubu said her organisation wonders how an attached questionnaire from the writer directed at FAAN was somehow linked to a travelling passenger and how N78million moved from said passenger to the account of the son of a top management staff of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

"A text message emanating from Mr Okim had read: 'I'd like you to react to information. We are told one of your security men, a son of one of your top management staff, M.D Musa, G.M Admin, under your H.R dept was caught with multi-million naira discovered in his personal bank account. Has the matter been reported to the relevant security agency? Thank you for your prompt response.'

"There is nothing wrong with an enquiry but providing wrong context to sensationalize serious matters and bring organizations to disrepute is unprofessional and shows the shallow depth of the writer to gain followership on his social media handles," the statement added.

It will be recalled that the controversial story had duly stated that FAAN spokesperson, Henrietta Yakubu was actually contacted by News Express and she said though the suspect was not in the Security section of the agency, the matter was currently under investigation.

"The young man isn't in Security dept. A committee is investigating and our parent Ministry (Ministry of Aviation) is aware. It's still an internal issue until we are done with the investigation. Thank you for your concern," Yakubu had told News Express on enquiry.

Subsequent questions were however not responded to by Yakubu as she blanked out after sending the above reply to the first question.

News Express had accordingly gone ahead to publish the story after 10 hours of no response from Yakubu.

Update news