17th September, 2010
It was a mild drama yesterday at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria when athletes from the South East zone of the country protested the cancellation of their flight by Aero Contractors.
The athletes were on their way to Owerri after taking part in the just concluded Special Olympic Championship held in Lagos. The athletes and their coaches, who were stranded at the airport for hours, had arrived at about 12 noon yesterday for an Aero Contractors flight to Owerri. It was scheduled to take off by 2.30 p.m. but few minutes to their departure time, the flight was cancelled by the airline, though the officials did not explain what went wrong.
The announcement by the airline officials that the athletes will be flown to Port Harcourt airport rather than Owerri, however, sparked a protest.
“We cannot go to Port Harcourt. We are not sure that when we get to Port Harcourt they will take us to Owerri. That is why we are angry,†one of the athletes told P.M.Sports.
Aero Contractors airline later sent a bus to convey the athletes out of the airport purportedly to a smaller plane.
—Simon Ateba
