Influenced by Foreign films: Sister tells stowaway boy, Daniel's story

The street of the 13 -year old stowaway boy Daniel (Rikcy) Oikhena, Ehiegba street, off Goodwill, Off Ekenwan road, Benin City, has turned to a tourists site since last Saturday with all sort of people trooping into the street to find out what really happened.

Journalists, security agents, market women led the bulk of visitors to the street and the family house of Daniel Oikhena. The family house of Daniel at No 7 Ehiegba Street, off Goodwill, Off Ekenwan is about 500 metres away from the Benin Airport run way.  During a visit to the house, our reporter met two of Danie’s younger brothers and some family members who beg to be excused comments but the eldest sister, Tonia simply said he is a reserve, gentle and intelligent boy.

Daniel, who is a junior secondary school two student of Asoro Grammar school, Benin, was said to have woke up around 3.30am on that faithful day watching an America film that led to disagreement between him and his eldest sister.  Tonia said, “Oga Journalists, lack of perimeter fencing at the Benin Airport made Daniel gain entrance into the airport. If properly fenced, I don’t know how he can enter.
“You see, any time,you discusses with Daniel, all he do say is that, one day I will surprise you all. He loves watching America films. If you put Nigeria drama, he leaves.

“Daniel is a quite person, he has no friends. Even in his school. He likes to do things in his own way. In most cases, he does confide in his junior brothers that one day, he will fly an Airplane. That is why one of them told their mother to go the Airport to rummage around.
“The junior brothers also told their mother that, Daniel confided in them that one day he would make the family name popular. They never told us. Now he has done that in a negative way. Thank God he is alive to tell the story himself, “she said.

The teenage stowaway, Daniel Ihekina, who was arrested at the Lagos Airport after flying in the tyre hole of an Arik plane from Benin to Lagos on Saturday morning, thought he was on a US-bound flight.

A source at the Benin Airport who disclosed this said the boy’s parents had already departed for Lagos in search of the stowaway.

The airport source, who did not want his name in print said, “From what we heard, the boy said he was being maltreated and tried to escape from his parents. He thought he was on his way to the US.

“The parents have travelled to Lagos by road, to get him back.”

Meanwhile, investigations conducted by one of our correspondents in Lagos revealed that the boy had been handed over to the operatives of the State Security Services for further investigation.

The General Manager, Corporate Communications, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Mr. Yakubu Dati, who also confirmed the development, said the aviation security personnel of the agency had handed over the young voyager to the men of the SSS for extensive investigation.

Dati said, “The residential address the boy gave to us was traced to a church in Benin by our airport manager and his team. So, there is need to hand over the teenager to the SSS who are experts in such investigations. They will carry out further investigation on the matter.”

The FAAN spokesman said the nature and circumstances surrounding the crime informed the agency decision to hand over the stowaway to the SSS operatives.

Meanwhile, following the Benin Airport incident, FAAN has adopted the ‘risk amelioration processes to safeguard flight operations’ at all its 22 airports across  the country.

Dati stressed that the agency had tightened its risk amelioration procedure to ensure that similar incident did not occur again.

He also said the agency had prioritised the perimeter fencing of all the 22 airports in the country.

“In the meantime, we have adopted risk amelioration processes to safeguard flight operations. As a result of this incident in Benin, we have further tightened our risk amelioration procedure to ensure that a similar incident does not occur,” he  said.

However, FAAN has also continued to trade blame with Arik Air over the Benin incident.

The agency, in a statement on Sunday, said it read with “great dismay the statement released by Arik Airlines about the stowaway found on board Arik’s flight 544 from Benin to Lagos on Saturday 24 August, 2013.”

Dati said FAAN was “unfairly indicted” while the airline took no responsibility whatsoever for such a “serious security breach.”

FAAN said its preliminary investigation had revealed that Arik did not give accurate account of the Benin Airport incident.

Giving the accounts of its preliminary findings, FAAN said, “Our investigations reveal that a passenger on board the flight called the attention of the cabin crew while the aircraft was waiting to take off at the threshold of the runway, to the effect that they had seen a young boy walk under the aircraft and had not seen him re-appear on the other side.”

“The cabin crew in turn informed the pilots in the cockpit about this. The pilots called the control tower and asked them to request FAAN to do a sweep of the area after their departure, opting to carry on with their flight despite the report.”

“Upon the arrival of the aircraft in Lagos, we were informed that there had been a stowaway found alive alighting from the wheel well of the aircraft. While FAAN takes this security breach extremely seriously, we deem Arik’s attempt at indicting and smearing FAAN as irresponsible. Safety and security breaches occur when all the checks in the system are beaten.  Given that security is a responsibility for all players in this industry, a critical last opportunity to detect and prevent this stowaway was offered and had the airline taken the information by passengers as seriously as they should have, this incident would have been avoided.”