TINUBU ORDERS THREE DAYS OF MOURNING WHILE THE ONDO SWAMP STILL HOLDS THE 32 NAMES

President Bola Tinubu has declared three days of national mourning for the Nigerian Air Force personnel killed when a military aircraft crashed in Ondo State on Monday, and he has ordered flags flown at half mast across the country.

The notice was issued on Monday night by his special adviser on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga. Tinubu sent his condolences to the chief of air staff, Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke, and to the officers, airmen and airwomen of the service. “This is a painful moment for our Armed Forces and for the entire nation,” he said. “Our Air Force personnel put their lives on the line every day to secure Nigeria. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

The aircraft was an ATR 42, tail number NGR 931. It was on a routine mission from Benin City in Edo State to Lagos. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo said controllers lost it at 9.13 a.m. and could not raise the crew on the radio. The wreckage was found close to the naval base in Igbokoda, headquarters of Ilaje local government, in swamp and creek. Keyamo put 25 passengers and seven crew on board. The presidency said none survived. The Air Force said the names would be released after families were told. Tinubu said Aneke had briefed him. He directed the Air Force to start a thorough investigation into the cause, so that a repeat could be prevented. He commended the service for opening search and rescue at once.

The mourning order is the public half of that briefing. Flags at half mast do not lift a recorder from a creek. They fix the crash as a national death rather than a local rescue. Three days is the period he set. He did not say whether the count includes only uniformed crew or every person on the aircraft. The public figure remains 32. Residents near Igbokoda said the site was still out of reach for much of Monday, with clothes and shoes found at the edge of the swamp and smoke over the creek. Recovery and the naming of the dead were still open when the statement went out.

Tinubu’s earlier instruction, given on the day of the crash, was a probe. The night statement repeats it and adds the mourning. Military flights sit outside the civil aviation ministry. Keyamo had already said his ministry does not control them, and that he had offered help to the chief of air staff. The investigation Tinubu ordered will have to say who leads it, whether the flight recorders can be recovered, and why an aircraft that had checked in after takeoff went silent. A controller who would not be named called that silence strange. That is not a cause. The rain over Ilaje that morning is not a cause either, until the inquiry says so.

What the presidency has now put on record is the toll, the grief, and the clock. Three days of mourning. Flags at half mast. A pledge that the sacrifice will not be forgotten. A direction to the Air Force to find out why NGR 931 left the radar at 9.13 a.m. and ended in the swamp beside the naval base. The names are the part still missing.