Our reporter/ Nigerian ambassador to Niger Republic, Mohammed Usman, on Saturday denied reports that the military junta denied President Bola Tinubu’s aircraft to its airspace and threatened to shoot down the jet.
The military junta in Niger was said to have asked the plane conveying Tinubu, who was on his way back to Nigeria from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, not to fly through the country’s airspace.
Journalist David Hundeyin who tracked the President’s flight from France on Friday evening reported that Tinubu was quietly returning back into Nigeria after an unscheduled 1 week stopover with in Paris, France.
“My aviation source tells me that the reason NAF 001 with Bola Tinubu onboard spent so many hours in Algeria where it appeared to be stuck is that Niger refused permission for Tinubu to fly through Nigèrien airspace and threatened to shoot his plane out of the sky if he dared”, he wrote in X, former known as Twitter.
“NAF 001 subsequently had to stop in Algeria to plot a new flight route to Abuja. They tried to cut through the southwestern tip of Niger, but they have just been forced to leave Nigèrien airspace”!.
“They’ve just entered Burkina Faso”!
“Drama in West Africa’s skies,! he concluded.
The alleged hostility from the junta was said to be linked to the position of the Tinubu led Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the recent coup in the country.
But when contacted over the allegation, the ambassador described the report it as fake news to a national online publication.
“It is not true,” he said in a terse response.
President Tinubu returned to Nigeria on Friday night after spending one week in Paris the French capital.
He attended the 78th UNGA in New York from September 18 to 26.
Cover pix: The alleged flight path of President Tinubu’s aircraft
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