Olusegun Obasanjo, former president, has narrated his experience of what transpired while an airline he was inside attempted to crash at the Lagos international airport.
Mr Obasanjo alongside others who boarded an Ethiopian airline while returning from an engagement in Addis Ababa, were reported to have escaped death on Wednesday.
Narrating what transpired, the former president in an interview said while the tensed atmosphere lasted, he was relaxed as he could do nothing but hand over the situation to God.
“While it all happened, I was reading my papers,” Mr Obasanjo recalled when consulted by Premium Times.
“One man, who was next to me, said, ‘Oga you no worry?’ I said, ‘Íf I worry, what will I do? If you are on a plane and you have a situation like this, why should you worry?’ I left everything in the hands of God,” he said.
The former military head of state said the mishap was caused by bad weather occasioned by rain. He said the pilot who made effort to land at about 12:20pm aborted his first attempt to touch down but later landed 10 minutes later.
“I was on Ethiopian Airline. Rain just came down heavily. The pilot thought he could land. And he landed. He touched down. But I think he took a swift decision that he had to take off again.
“So he took off. If he did not, I think he probably would have overrun the runway. He then apologised and said he would try to land again. He tried again, and we landed safely. And we all clapped.
“He touched the ground. Then he took off and apologised and landed again at about 12.30. We spent just about 10 minutes in the air before we landed again,” the former president added.
Obasanjo alongside former president, Goodluck Jonathan, were noticeably absent at the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term in office.
