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.
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.
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