By Baron Ike
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Diaspora Commission (NDC), has said she did not accuse Egypt Air and Ethiopian Airlines of facilitating drug trafficking in Nigeria.
Reports on Wednesday quoted the former House of Representatives member of saying at a Senate committee public hearing that the two aforementioned airlines were operating drug cartels in Nigeria.
During the public hearing, Dabiri-Erewa had requested the two airlines to ensure compulsory baggage identification because all drug cases recorded in the country had involved them.
But in a statement on Thursday by Dabiri-Eruwa’s media aide, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, she said the reports credited to her were not true and hardly reflected what she said and had in mind.
The sdtatement read: “Luckily enough, the representative of Ethiopian Air, who was at the public hearing, promised that baggage identification would be strengthened.
“The Senate public hearing was geared towards probing the circumstances surrounding the framing up and eventual arrest of Zainab Aliyu in Saudi Arabia over allegation of carrying tramadol drug in her baggage.
“Members of the public are hereby urged to discountenance previous publication that is contrary to this clarification.”
During the hearing, however, Dabiri-Eruwa said: “We are talking about scanners and customs. The question is, are the scanners at our airport working? There is virtually no security surveillance at our airports.
“In moving forward, we just have to forget about blame-game but work to ensure that we have proper security surveillance at our airports.
“Secondly, Zainab and Ibrahim’s case was an inside job. There were people in there that were experts in doing this to other people’s bags. So, where are they and who are they?
“I’m sorry to say, in all cases we’ve investigated; only two airlines have been involved, Ethiopian airline and Egypt air. All the cases, I didn’t say some. It’s been Ethiopia Air and Egypt Air.
“So, those two airlines, we have to, first of all, ensure compulsory baggage identification. Everybody going on that route, you must ensure that every passenger identifies their bags. If they don’t do that, don’t carry those bags. Because there are cartels inside there working on those things.”