One year after the ill-fated air crash involving an aircraft belonging to Dana Air in the Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos, Lagos State Governor on Monday commissioned a cenotaph in honour of the 157 late passengers.
The cenotaph is built on four plots at the junction between Popoola and Olaniyi Street, by Toyin Bus Stop and it holds the replica of the Dana aircraft broken into two.
Speaking to the huge crowd that gathered at the event, Governor Fashola said the State Government spent several millions of naira carrying out tests to ascertain the true identity of the victims. He also said that although the incident happened one year ago, the memory has lingered in the hearts of bereaved family members. He lamented that the cause of the accident remains yet unknown.“But while the cause was at the time unknown, our collective tragedy was immediately unfolding. Many nations and their nationalities from India, China, Germany, the United States and Nigeria were united by a common grief: the loss of their loved ones,” he said.
“It was an accident that took place in Lagos. But its impact and reach were beyond our borders. Men and women, Muslims and Christians, Hindus and atheists became joined by a common pain. It was a horrific day.
“I remember that I had promised myself to rest a little that afternoon and prepare for a new week. Just like many of you, I remember where I was. I had just settled on my sofa to watch the television when the news filtered in. Initially, I was told it was a cargo plane in Ghana. As I sought to make further enquiries, my thoughts were racing. The cargo was replaceable, how many crew members were on board. I was in this reverie of a damage limitation calculation when my enquiry revealed that it was a passenger plane.”
He observed that no one could have predicted what sad and painful thoughts would accompany people to bed that night. According to the governor, a year may seem like a long time but for the families and friends of the men women and children lost, that day does not feel like history.
“The memories of that day are probably as fresh as they are painful; particularly today when you are forced to confront the thoughts you may have pushed to the innermost recesses of your minds, just to enable you get from one day to the next.
"What does one say at a time like this? What does one say when words will never be enough? Many of us cannot even begin to imagine how great your suffering must have been this last one year.“We can only empathize with you, in the vain hope that our empathy will bring some relief. We can only utter words we know will never fill the voids but which we nonetheless pray will bring some comfort.
“What I do know is that today, although our grief is deep and our sense of loss unquantifiable, our heads are not bowed. We are not crestfallen. Your undying spirit to continue and your presence here today is a sign of monumental courage.
“It is not courage without pain. No. It is courage defined by dignity and resolve to get on with life inspite of the pain. I stand before you today, the representative of a government and a State that shared your pain. A State whose lot it was to play host in the most unwelcome of situations a year ago today.”Recalling details of the sad incident of the day, Governor Fashola noted that even the Okuchukwu family that did not fly also shared the pain.
“Electricity had a part to play. A mother and a father in a building close to this site were spending time with their four children. The mother was plaiting the hair of the youngest child, a girl. They did not have power. Suddenly, electricity came and the whole community knew. Strangely their flat did not have power.“The father instructed the eldest child to get the local electrician to come and solve the problem so that they could iron their uniform in readiness for school on the next day, a Monday. The boy took some time returning, so the father sent his younger brother to go and locate him.
“In pure innocence, the third child, a girl, followed her brother. As soon as they stepped out of the building, Dana Air flight 992 descended on their home. They became lost in the massive crowd. The eldest was eleven, followed by the nine year old and the seven year old. Their parents and youngest sibling were consumed by a flight they did not board.”
Continuing, Fashola said: “God works in wondrous ways. I met them at the site on the 4th of June. Our paths have remained intertwined since then. They are doing well. They have become a lifetime commitment for my wife and I to ensure that their promise is fulfilled. Their origins are in Enugu State. But their home is Lagos. The home of all Nigerians; and this memorial will always remind us about how we met.
“On that fateful Sunday morning, the men, women and children of the ill-fated Dana Air Flight 992 had journeyed more than 700km from Abuja to Lagos and were minutes away from arrival and reunion.“There are no words that can reliably convey the depth of our heartache. Anything we say today will be an inadequate expression of what we truly carry in our hearts. The greatest and truest testimony will not be in our words but in our actions.
“Apart from the Okuchukwu family, there were so many other stories. Stories of great people, Nigerians and non-Nigerians that time will not permit me to fully narrate.
“But I must share some of them with you in remembrance because they symbolize the spirit of men, women and children who were bound together in the common destiny of an ill-fated flight.“We remember Tosin Anibaba who loved her job and the life she was building with her husband and two-year old daughter. She worked at the FATE foundation, an NGO that is dedicated to reducing unemployment. Those that knew Tosin said that she always wore a huge smile on her face.
“We remember Dunni Doherty who was a bright and determined young woman. She had returned to Lagos after her studies in the UK and had taken up a job as a teacher at the Lagos Preparatory school. She was an inspiration not just to her students but to all her friends. This bright young lady will be missed by all those who knew her.
“We remember Eke Chijokie, one of the crew members, who was not even supposed to be on the flight. He was only on board because he was called in to relieve a sick colleague at the last minute. Being the dutiful employee he was, he responded immediately. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth and their two-year old son.
“Vivian Effiong was also a dedicated crew member. Her colleagues described her as a caring, selfless and lovable person. Vivian was just a month away from marrying her fiancé who lived in the United Kingdom. She is survived by her 16-year old daughter.
“The story of the Anyene family is one that will live long in the memory. All of six of them perished in the crash. Maimuna the wife and mother of 4 beautiful children - Kamsiyonna (3), Kainetochi (2), Kaimarachi (2) and Kobichimee (five months), was a graduate of the University of Ibadan before she moved to the United States. Her husband, Onyeka Anyene, was a successful lawyer with offices in both Abuja and Lagos. His young family had relocated to the United States and were only visiting Nigeria to attend a wedding.
“Sisters, Josephine and Jennifer Oniita were also just visiting Nigeria for a friend’s wedding. Both girls grew up in Texas attending the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Jesus House where their parents were the founding members. Theirs was a life dedicated to God’s work. Their parents and two siblings can take solace in the fact that their work here on earth is surely now being rewarded in heaven.
“Rajulie and Ugabio Oyosoro were aged 15 and 12 respectively and were two siblings of exceptional promise. Such was their academic prowess that the school they were attending in Lagos fought to retain their talents when their mother relocated to Abuja. They had just come back from a trip to visit her when disaster struck. Mrs. Oyowosoro we share in your pain and sorrow.
“Sergeant Adejilola Abraham joined the Nigerian Air Force immediately after he completed his schooling. He was known as a courageous soldier and a doting father. He was returning to work after attending the christening ceremony of his second child.
“Anjola Fatokun was a high flying lawyer who had recently been transferred to Abuja by the communications firm she worked for. She had been married for four years and is survived by her husband and two children.
“Alvana Ojukwu, was another lawyer of immense promise. She had been admitted to further her education at Oxford University in September last year. A devout Christian, Alvana was able to send out a text to her brother which read thus:
'TAKE STRENGTH IN THE LORD. A FEW MINUTES FROM NOW I WILL BE GOING TO MEET THE LORD'
“Each of those we come to eulogise had their own unique story, their unique purpose in life that was cut short far too soon. As we remember the victims, we must deeply reach out to their survivors and salute their tenacity and courage.
“I remember Dr. Ayene. He had the biggest personal loss. But in my meetings with the bereaved relatives, he showed a courage and strength that I have never experienced. He seemingly forgot about his own personal loss and joined me in consoling and calming others as if his own loss did not matter.
“I remembered Chizoba Majekwe, the head of HR in CBN who had come to the meeting because she was herself bereaved and her colleagues in the Bank were also victims. She told the story of how she herself lost her mother in a horrific road crash in which everybody was burnt beyond recognition.
“She helped in giving strength to bereaved relatives as they gave us their authority to undergo a long process of victim identification that was later to prove definitive in the positive identification of 148 bodies, that were subsequently released to their families for burial.
“I remember all our first responders from LASEMA, Lagos Fire Service, the Police, FEMA, Ministry of Health, our Chief Pathologist, and Vice Chancellor of LASU, Prof. Obafunwa and his colleagues from other Universities who performed all the autopsies. To you all I say thank you.”
He commended religious leaders, who rose to join government efforts in consoling the bereaved. He also thanked the minister for aviation, members of the National Assembly, President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerians for their support throughout the period.
“To all family members who lost loved ones, we promised a year ago that we would fittingly honour all of them and today we move one small step closer towards immortalising their memories.
“In as much as it is a tragedy that brings us together here, the real tragedy to befall us would be to forget what happened. We must never forget. We can never forget. This cenotaph which we are unveiling here today will ensure that their memories never die.
“This monument will stand as a permanent memorial to these family men, women and children; and we will cherish each of their stories - stories of potential and of fulfilment, stories of true heroes,” the governor said, adding that it will be more important for all who have authority and responsibility to act with a preventive purpose to ensure that such an incident does not happen.
He stated that the watchword for decision-making must always be safety and not profit, stressing that the government has learnt some painful lessons.
“We have now improved our response capacity, trained and continue to re-train our first responders, develop response protocols and acquired necessary equipment. We convened a Disaster and Emergency Management Summit for all the States in the South West, at which we shared our experience and information.
“The entire incident is properly documented for posterity, with copies in the Attorney General’s office and the Governor’s office, with details of what we did well and what we could have done better to avoid our past mistakes. God forbid it, if such a disaster should recur, we are much better prepared to respond. But it will not be enough to hope that this kind of disasters will not happen.”
Relations of the victims were present at the event. Mrs. Chizoba Majekwe said life has not remained the same since the incident happened. She said at the period, she did not know who to mourn between her sister and the eight staff of the CBN who died in the crash. She however commended the Lagos State Government for its efforts since the incident happened.
Some families of the victims also raised issues concerning compensation. They accused the airline of playing politics with the incident, saying those who have received benefits were not more that 10 percent of the victims.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan has promised that his administration could continue working relentlessly to improve safety in the aviation sector to avoid recurrences of the Dana air crash.
“Let me reiterate our resolve to maintain maximum vigilance to safety regulations of our aviation industry,” Jonathan said while unveiling the cenotaph in memory of the victims of the air disaster at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja
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The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered stolen Nigerian assets held abroad for information that leads to their recovery.
Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.
According to him, the ability of EFCC operatives to trace assets, cooperation from the judiciary and access to credible intelligence have played important roles in the commission’s success in securing non-conviction-based forfeiture orders.
He also described the EFCC as having some of the best investigators in the world and stressed the importance of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
He said anyone with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets taken or hidden anywhere in the world could receive between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the recovered assets as an incentive, with payment made after the recovery.
Olukoyede further revealed that the EFCC had forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the past three years.
He cited several cases involving the recovery and forfeiture of assets, including cases linked to a former Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria and a former Attorney-General of the Federation.
The EFCC chairman explained that the commission is legally empowered to seek the forfeiture of suspected proceeds of crime by applying to the High Court for an order. He said the process is similar to procedures used in countries such as Australia and Canada.
Olukoyede also recalled a case involving an aircraft allegedly acquired by an individual who was accused of receiving about $30 million in bribes in connection with a power project. He said the aircraft was forfeited about three months ago and had subsequently been added to the presidential air fleet.
He also referred to a property containing about 753 housing units that was forfeited from a former CBN governor, against whom the EFCC has filed criminal charges in three courts.
Speaking about the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, Olukoyede said the EFCC opened an investigation following allegations of abuse of office. He claimed that investigators traced about 57 properties to Malami and that approximately 48 of them had been forfeited.
The EFCC chairman further mentioned the forfeiture of a private university allegedly linked to a director in the Federal Ministry of Health. According to him, the official voluntarily surrendered the property following the commission’s investigation.
Olukoyede said the measures demonstrate the importance of asset tracing, international cooperation, credible intelligence and whistleblower protection in the fight against financial crime and the recovery of stolen public assets.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has raised concerns over the growing volume of imported petrol entering Nigeria, warning that it could be forced to export more of its own production if the trend continues.
The refinery said imported Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) made up roughly 43 per cent of the petrol supplied to the Nigerian market in July. It argued that the development was creating serious difficulties for a domestic refinery with the capacity to produce enough fuel for the country.
Dangote Refinery explained that it has maintained sizeable petrol reserves since commencing operations to ensure that consumers across Nigeria have access to a reliable supply. Keeping those reserves, it noted, requires substantial expenditure on storage, transportation and working capital.
However, the refinery said the continued granting of import licences without adequate information about expected import volumes has made it increasingly difficult to determine how much petrol should be produced and stored for the local market.
The company said holding large quantities of petrol becomes financially burdensome when there is no certainty about how much imported fuel will compete for the same market. It therefore considers exporting surplus stocks a more commercially viable option than allowing them to remain in storage indefinitely.
According to the refinery, increased exports in recent months should not be interpreted as evidence that Nigeria lacks sufficient refining capacity. Instead, the exports are being driven by excess stock resulting from unpredictable import volumes.
Dangote Refinery maintained that it remains fully committed to supplying the Nigerian market and has the capacity to meet or surpass the country's petrol requirements. It said its decision to export surplus products was aimed at managing inventory efficiently and avoiding unnecessary storage and financing expenses.
The refinery also warned that market disruptions caused by excessive imports could make it harder for domestic refiners to accurately predict demand. Any resulting supply problems, it said, should not automatically be blamed on local refineries.
It urged regulators and other industry stakeholders to improve transparency around petrol imports and strengthen coordination within the downstream petroleum market.
The company argued that policies that give greater support to domestic refining would help Nigeria reduce its dependence on imported fuel, conserve foreign exchange, strengthen energy security and maximise the economic benefits of investments in local refining infrastructure.
Dangote Refinery said it remains prepared to supply the country but stressed that a more predictable and transparent market environment is necessary for efficient production and inventory management.
Business
In The Spotlight
A group of heartless carpetbaggers have captured the Nigerian state, and it appears that they, their biological and political descendants, will hold the levers of government and access to Nigeria’s commonwealth for a long time to come.
When you consider news reports of how previous and current state actors steal public funds, buy choice properties in the toniest districts of Nigeria’s major cities, acquire private jets, and even establish private universities, you wonder if some people have more than two heads, to adopt a Yoruba phrase.
Either because of an inability to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerian citizens, or by intention, the political elite have kept the people poor, causing them to depend on the largeness of heart of the same elite to meet their existential needs.
That explains why poor, downtrodden, and unconnected Nigerians eagerly collect crumbs of measly N5,000, rice, gari and whatever else the politicians offer to obtain their election votes or acquiescence after rigging the elections.
When watching an economically disadvantaged individual tell a politician who is seeking to become a legislator the good news that his wife just had a new baby, and he needed to prepare for the naming ceremony, it felt like the oppressed poor were enabling his oppressor to further oppress him.
It was like the classic case of Stockholm syndrome, of victims collaborating with their “captors” to cement the oppressive stranglehold that they already had over the state and the commonwealth of the nation, thus unwittingly arresting their own future development.
A running mate to a former governorship candidate in a Southwestern state hilariously regaled Nigerians with the story of how constituents would have raided all the alcoholic drinks in his refrigerator in the early hours of the morning, even before he woke from the hectic campaign tour of the previous day.
The political elite have practically cornered the Nigerian state for themselves, children, tribesmen and acolytes, and have devised a way to admit only those that they have found to be loyal, or pliable, into their rank of oppressors.
The oppression of the citizens of Nigeria is easily accomplished because of the high illiteracy level amongst the poor masses. The use of the weapon of illiteracy is more evident in Northern Nigeria, whose political leaders somehow turn a blind eye to the illiteracy and underdevelopment of their people.
In 2024, UNICEF revealed that out of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children, about 12.1 million, or 66 per cent, were resident in the Northwest and Northeast regions. Yet, instead of expanding educational facilities and opportunities, some Northern governors are arranging mass weddings for children who are hardly out of their teen years.
And this is not to deny the weaponisation of illiteracy even in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, which is regarded as the Athens of Nigeria, after its pre-Independence head start of free, universal and compulsory primary school education.
As if he had a premonition that Nigeria’s so-called democrats would eventually compromise education, to the detriment of the lowest and marginalised masses, that Karl Marx described as the “lumpen proletariat”, French political thinker Montesquieu argued a long time ago that “It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required.”
Western Nigeria’s free education scheme was gradually abandoned from the days of the Second Republic when some Yoruba members of President Shehu Shagari’s political party knocked it off its bottom with the argument that “qualitative” education was better than “free” education.
It is more than a shame that a free, universal and compulsory primary school education scheme was abandoned under President Shagari, who not only was a trained teacher, but had a career as a teacher before his political career.
Awolowo had warned Nigeria’s political elite with the following quip: “The children of the poor that you failed to educate will not let your children sleep peacefully.” The insecurity that currently occurs in nearly every part of Nigeria only drives Awolowo’s point home.
Probably the realm of the Nigerian republic that has been most complicit with the carpetbagger political elite is the media, whose members either serve the elites as press secretaries who kill media brushfires, or editors who either run planted stories, or spike stories that the politicians do not want published.
The media is so compromised that it can hardly perform those responsibilities assigned to it by Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, which are to “be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in (Chapter II of the Constitution) and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people.”
Some apologists have argued on behalf of the media that the political elite have so run the economy aground that the media, which can only thrive as commercial enterprises within Nigeria’s quasi-capitalist economy, cannot stay afloat, especially with the devastating inroads that the digital media are making into their audience, advertising revenue and profit.
The absence of regional economies, the argument goes, prevents the emergence of regional newspapers that can thrive on advertising revenues from regional companies, the way it obtains in the economies of North America and Western Europe. Many Nigerian newspapers, that are essentially regional, often pretend to be national to receive advertising revenue from companies whose market is national.
Two other collaborators of the political elite are the election management agencies and the judiciary at both the national and sub-national levels of government. The conspiracy between these agencies and the political elite is almost like that of Siamese twins conjoined by the belly button.
After the election management agencies may have deliberately bungled (especially) governorship and legislative house elections, and declared false reports, the losers, who felt that they won the election, would then approach the temple of justice, with significant financial inducement to ask for justice(?).
From that point on, the justice that both contestants hope to corruptly obtain could swing according to the heft of the naira in the Ghana-must-go bag that they will be hauling into the chambers of the denizens of the corrupted judiciary.
Thus, the “award” of electoral justice is “a matter of cash”, to quote Basi, the protagonist of “Basi & Co”, the television sitcom produced by environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who himself was denied justice from the judiciary that served the regime of General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s most notorious military dictator.
In Nigeria, the lines of separation of powers that demarcate the duties of the three arms of government –the legislative, executive and judiciary– and the checks and balances that empower each arm to check the others have become almost irredeemably blurred.
As legislators use constituency projects as a ploy to carry out the functions of the executive, the president issues executive orders that are essentially legislative in nature. Though the judiciary does not perform the duties of the other arms, it fails to check them as it indulgently winks at their excesses.
If those who are regarded as Nigeria’s political elite really know what is in their enlightened self-interest and would like to protect the future of their descendants from what Thomas Hobbes described as a short, brutish and nasty existence, they will use their current privilege to correct the evil they have done to Nigerians.
They must urgently redeem the future before it delivers violence against their children.
By Lekan Sote
In The Spotlight
Lagos alone is worth more than Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda and Mauritius combined.
Let that sink in.
With an economy of N41.17tn — about $102bn in 2021 — Lagos State dwarfed the entire gross domestic products of four countries. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa sit on oil wealth that funds nations. Ogun, Anambra and Imo churn out goods, services and commerce that would make small economies jealous.
By the numbers, Nigeria’s states are giants.
But walk the streets of Lagos, and you will still find mothers cooking with firewood. Drive through Port Harcourt, and you will see communities drinking water polluted by the same oil that makes the state’s GDP glow. Visit Umuahia, Abeokuta, or Minna and ask the average trader what “trillion-naira economy” means to her dinner table.
The answer is: nothing.
That viral video telling you “10 Nigerian states are richer than countries” is both true and a lie. True, because the 2021 BudgIT figures don’t lie — Lagos at N41.17trn, Rivers at N7.96trn, and so on. A lie, because those numbers are GDP, not prosperity. They measure how much economic activity happens _in_ a place, not how much of it reaches the people who live there.
A country with $7,778 GDP per capita, like Botswana, will still feed its citizens better than a state with $102bn in total output but $2,058 per capita, like Nigeria. A state can host a port, an oil rig, and a tech hub, yet fail to build a hospital that works.
So, the real question isn’t “Which state is bigger than which country?”
The real question, and the one our governors should lose sleep over, is this: When your economy is bigger than a nation, why are your people still living like they have nothing?
In this edition of The Bottomline, we follow the money from GDP to the gutter — and ask why Nigeria’s trillion-naira states have not become trillion-naira lives.
The viral numbers are not new. They were lifted straight from BudgIT’s 2022 State of States report and reflected 2021 estimates: Lagos at N41.17tn, followed by Rivers at N7.96tn, Akwa Ibom at N7.77tn, Imo at N7.68tn, Delta at N6.19tn, Anambra at N5.14tn, Ondo at N5.10tn, Ogun at N5.03tn, Bayelsa at N4.63tn and Niger at N4.58tn.
The trick is in the timing. To pitch those 2021 figures against 2025 country GDPs is statistical fraud. Nigeria has since rebased. The NBS moved the base year from 2010 to 2019, and the whole map shifted. Lagos itself has moved on: its 2025 _Lagos Economic Development Update_ puts the state at N43.06tn in 2023, with forecasts of N54.77tn for 2024 and N66.47tn for 2025. Those are projections, not fresh NBS post-rebasing observations, but they tell you the direction: up.
There is no debate that Lagos is Nigeria’s economic engine. From a colonial port to federal capital until 1991, it never lost momentum. Today, trade, manufacturing, ports, telecoms, tech, entertainment, real estate and finance all cluster in just 3,345 square kilometres. Compare that footprint to Botswana’s 581,730 sq km, Namibia’s 825,615 sq km, Rwanda’s 26,338 sq km, and Mauritius’ 2,040 sq km. Yet in 2021, Lagos’ $102 billion economy was several times larger than Botswana’s $19.9bn, Namibia’s $15.1bn, Rwanda’s $16.4bn, and Mauritius’ $16.2bn, according to 2025 World Bank figures.
That comparison is legitimate. The conclusion people draw from it is not.
GDP tells you how much value was produced in a territory. It does not tell you who owns it, who earns it, or whether the roads work, the lights stay on, or the hospital has drugs.
A state can run a trillion-naira economy and still have mothers boiling water on firewood. A country can have a smaller GDP and deliver a better life. Look at the per capita numbers: Botswana at $7,778, Namibia at $5,309, Mauritius at $11,819. Nigeria sits at about $2,058. Even Rwanda, at just $773 per capita, has pushed its $3-a-day poverty rate down to 38.6 per cent — proof that size is not destiny.
The oil states expose the fraud most brutally. Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa rank high because petroleum inflates their GDP. But oil wealth does not flow into state coffers in equal measure, and it certainly does not flow into household wallets. BudgIT’s own fiscal sustainability index proves this. In 2022, Rivers topped overall fiscal performance despite Lagos having the biggest economy. A big economy without revenue discipline, jobs, and services is just a billboard.
Nigeria does not have a GDP problem. We have a translation problem.
We have pockets of enormous economic power. Lagos. Rivers. Akwa Ibom. Ogun. Anambra. Delta. The output is real. What is missing is the bridge between that output and ordinary life.
Until economic activity creates real jobs, until IGR rises and addiction to federal allocation falls, until infrastructure supports production instead of strangling it, those trillion-naira figures will remain a cruel joke.
So let the video go viral. Let Lagos be “bigger than Botswana”.
But governors, commissioners, and citizens should ask only one question:
If my state can outproduce a country, why can’t it out-deliver a decent life for the people who call it home?
Until we answer that, we are not rich. We are just big.
By Raphael Mbamalu