The management of Executive Jet Services, the airline company that ferried Nigerian musician, Azeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, from Lagos to Abuja for a concert, last weekend, has claimed that they mistook the artiste for Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola.
The airline company was suspended by the Nigerian Government for flying the musician when the permit granted to it was to fly a Court of Appeal judge to Abuja and back to Lagos for a special assignment.
Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Executive Jet Services, Mr. Sam Iwuajoku, in the apology letter to the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, claimed that they mistakenly flew the artiste and his crew to Abuja after his surname ‘Fashola’ tricked them into believing that it was the Minister of Works.
Iwuajoku said in the letter, “We hereby apologise for the above flight, with your permit ref: PMA/ATMD/0175/V/V/1268 dated 11th June, 2020.
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“Please the flight was to carry a judge to Abuja on Sunday 14th, 2020 as requested and permit was granted based on the application, but unfortunately when I called the Judge on Saturday morning to inform him that we have the permit, he then said that he has reached Abuja already with a different flight that someone gave him a lift to Abuja.
“So, on Saturday morning 13th June, 2020 my staff called me that they have a charter flight to Abuja and that the passengers are already in the lounge as a rule passenger manifest is always sent to me before any departure, when I went through the manifest and I saw Fashola Babatunde, I thought it was the Honorable Minister of Works going to Abuja with his men, so we decided to do the flight since (he) is a serving minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I didn’t know that it was a bunch of useless people.
“We are very sorry for this mistake and we promise that this would not happen again.”