Nigerian Air Force has stated that it is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of its Flying Officer, Tolulope Arotile, in a road accident.
The NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, stated this in an interview with Punch, saying at the end of the investigation, “whatever information needs to go out will go out.”
He stated that two persons in connection with the accident are being held in NAF base.
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The air force had said the female officer sustained head injuries from the accident when she was “inadvertently hit by the reversing vehicle of an excited former Air Force secondary school classmate while trying to greet her.”
Arotile, a member of the Nigerian Defence Academy Regular Course 64, hailed from Iffe in the Ijumu Local Government Area of Kogi State, and contributed to the efforts to rid the North-Central states of bandits and other criminal elements by flying combat missions.
She was particularly a squadron leader in Operation Gama Aiki in Minna Niger State.
The two suspects are in custody and the NAF will do a thorough investigation into the matter.
NAF stated that;
It is a routine process – our own processes that are ongoing because it happened inside a NAF base.
At the appropriate time, whatever information needs to go out will go out. But we cannot pre-empt that investigation process. Whatever needs to be known will be known; it is standard practice. So, we are investigating the circumstances leading to her death by a road traffic accident. It is an investigation because it may go beyond NAF.
NAF noted that it would continue to support female pilots’ training as 11 were currently undergoing training within and outside Nigeria.
This comes few days after a Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, questioned the cause of female officer’s death, rejecting the road accident explanation and calling for a Coroner’s Inquest into her death.
Her family also demanded an investigation into the death of their daughter, stating that;
We are not convinced that Tolu can just die like that in a freak accident. I know that the military is well trained in the art of investigation, we want them to carry out a thorough investigation that can convince us beyond all doubts that the incident that led to her death was real.
