Sunday 19 December 2021 : Nigerians seen being maltreated at the Gnassingbe Eyadema International Airport, Lome on Saturday in a viral video have been successfully evacuated to the country.
It was learnt that both the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, Geofrey Onyeama, and the Ambassador to Togo, Debo Adesina, had immediately moved in on Saturday after getting wind of the incident where some of the Nigerian passengers were shown being assaulted by airport security operatives.
It was gathered that the Nigerian passengers aboard the Ethiopian Airline from New York got to Lome only to be informed that their connecting flight to Nigeria through ASky Airline was full.
This infuriated the Nigerian passengers, leading to a protest within the airport and for which some of the Nigerians were shackled and manhandled.
In the viral video, some people were seen with their hands tied to their backs while uniformed men believed to be Togolese airport securitymen were seen assaulting a lady who was on the floor.
A man could be heard screaming “This is bad, this is bad.”
It was gathered that Adesina, who was said to have briefed the minister, personally went to the airport on hearing the news of the development.
It was learnt that he, alongside the boss of the country’s civil aviation company, one Colonel Dokisime Gnama Latta, immediately worked out an arrangement for two flights to evacuate all of the passengers Saturday night.
ASky Airline, which is said to be a strategic partner of the Ethiopian Airline has been facing challenges in the last three weeks due to traffic volume.
It was learnt that the same airline had almost aborted a trip by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, last week when he was on his way to Kenya from The Gambia where he went for election monitoring.