The President of the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Security Studies, Mike Ejiofor, has called for a broader investigation into the operations, maintenance and condition of Nigeria’s military aircraft following the October 5, 2026 crash of a Nigerian Air Force aircraft in Ondo State.

Ejiofor, a former Director of the Department of State Services, made the call during an interview on Arise News on Wednesday, saying the frequency of military aircraft crashes had become a cause for concern.

“I think it’s becoming one too many—the incidents of air crashes involving the military. So I think the investigation should go, not the immediate cause of this, that should be looked into, but the frequent crashes of our military aircraft should be looked into.

“What is the state of maintenance of all these aircraft? How long have they been in service? What is the state of aircraft—we can’t continue to have—I think from records, from what I was reading, we’ve had over 10 crashes in the last 10 years. You remember the one that claimed the life of the Chief of Army Staff.

“So we should look into the general operations of the Air Force and look at them— I mean, it’s sad, very, very sad. So the government has taken the right initiative. It’s quite unfortunate, because this is the highest so far in military crashes of a number of casualties that were just recent, which is very sad,” he lamented.

The October 5 crash killed all 25 people on board, comprising 20 passengers and five crew members.

Ejiofor also raised concerns over the conflicting figures initially reported about the number of people aboard the aircraft, saying the discrepancy pointed to weaknesses in record-keeping.

“It goes again to the issue of data keeping. It should have been easier to, or simple, to get the manifest and know the number of people. But you know the way we keep records, my only surprise, there might be more people in the aircraft who were not contained in the manifest.

“So I think that is what is responsible for the disconnect—the Aviation Minister saying a different thing, and the Air Force, the Defense, saying another thing. But I think we should rely more on the manifest of the aircraft if they actually complied with that—the people in the aircraft, their names were contained there in the manifest. And it’s a sad situation that this simple record keeping can just have a conflict.”

On the difficulty in recovering the wreckage and victims, Ejiofor attributed the challenge to the terrain around the crash site and stressed the importance of recovering the aircraft’s black boxes.

“It’s the terrain. The terrain is very bad, and you’ll recall we had a case like that—I think in 2012—involving Dana Air where the aircraft dived into the deep, it was on a swamp, as to speak.

“So the terrain where this crash took place—and from what people have been saying, even though investigation has not concluded, is that the pilot managed to avoid areas to reduce the number of casualties at the risk of his own life and the life of others.

“So I think as the investigation goes on, we should be able to know what actually happened. But the fear is that, except the black boxes are recovered, the fear is that they lost contact, they lost signals from the aircraft as soon as it took off.”

Ejiofor also questioned the possible purpose of the aircraft’s journey, saying he doubted it was being used for reconnaissance given the number of people reportedly aboard.

“I’m not in the Air Force. I don’t know how they operate, but I very much doubt if it was actually on an operation with that number of people if it’s on reconnaissance.

“If you have those number of people—I’m not ruling out the possibility—from Lagos to Benin to Lagos are not very serious operational areas, if you are talking of somewhere like Niger, Zamfara, in the North. We can say, yes, maybe they went in for an operation.

“But I believe abuse in our country, possibly go and convey these people using the Air Force aircraft to go to this place. Because I understand—we don’t know—I understand there were children inside, so they couldn’t have been on reconnaissance.”

On the rescue operation, Ejiofor said the proximity of a naval base and police station should ordinarily have facilitated a quick response, but acknowledged the difficulty posed by the terrain.

“I think nobody should be blamed for this, because if you also recall that it’s close to a naval base and police station, so rescue should have been immediate. But the terrain posed a very serious challenge. As we speak, the fuselage of the aircraft and others have not been recovered. So there’s no hope that there’s any life, because body parts were scattered. So it’s quite unfortunate, but let’s wait for the outcome.”

Reacting to reports of a deafening sound before the crash, Ejiofor cautioned against drawing conclusions before the investigation is completed.

“For me, these are speculations. It’s possible the impact on crashing caused the deafening noise. But again, if you look at the situation analytically, that body parts were found, it’s also possible that there was an explosion before the impact, which led to disintegration and finding of body parts. So until the investigation is concluded, we can’t be specific on what actually caused whether it was an explosion in the air or the impact on the ground,” he said.

On ISWAP leader killed, forest guards

Ejiofor also spoke about the killing of ISWAP leader Abdussamad Ohida, also known as Anwar, in Ondo State, describing it as “very, very significant.”

He said intelligence indicated that the group was planning attacks during the festive period to discourage Nigerians from participating in the general elections.

“The killing of Oheda is very, very significant, very significant. If you recall that in Nigerian ISWAP, he’s next to the leader, the Nigerian leader who was arrested by the DSS in 2023 and is still being prosecuted. So it’s very significant.

“Now, the intelligence is that they were planning attacks during the festive period to discourage people from going for general elections, and that would have been massive too, leading to loss of lives. We’ve lost lives, but lives have also been prevented from being lost in this process. So I think we commend our security forces.”

Ejiofor further stressed the need for coordination among security agencies, citing the joint efforts of the DSS, Army and Amotekun.

“Coordination, synergy is very, very key in the success of operations. And you can see that all these stakeholders were mentioned. SSS doesn’t want to take the glory alone for them to provide intelligence, then the Army will do the backup, the Amotekun, and all the stakeholders, the Amotekun, the military, and the SSS were mentioned, not one agency taking the glory.

“And that is why I always say that the issue of state police is very, very critical, because they live on the ground, but they don’t have the capacity to deal with the situation. So when they get such information, liaise with these agencies, of course, we achieve results.

“And we must intensify efforts now that we are heading towards general election, because there’s no way we can go into general elections under this security situation, though we are having some improvement in the security challenges we are facing in the country.”

On preventing Ohida’s network from regrouping, Ejiofor called for intensified intelligence gathering and monitoring of political activities ahead of the elections.

“There has been intensified effort on the part of security agencies in terms of intelligence gathering, in terms of prevention. But I agree that our security agencies have more to do now, especially in terms of intelligence gathering.

“I’m going to emphasize—the political threats is going to be more than what we are facing now, because the politicians have now come out with the issue of do or die, win or you lose, both opposition, people in government, everybody is chanting war songs. So I think our security agencies, apart from the threats of ISWAP and all these people, should intensify on monitoring the activities of politicians.”

On forest guards, Ejiofor said they lacked the capacity to effectively tackle non-state actors operating in Nigeria’s forests without further training and support.

“Do they have the capacity? Do they have the capacity? Of course, the answer is obvious, they don’t have.

“They are just being established, they need to be trained, but the quickest way out of this quagmire is the state police to complement our security agencies. So I think they will do their best, but I don’t think they have the capacity to deal with the situation as it is now.” (PUNCH)

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