The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has clarified that it did not impose any charges or bans on Comfort Emmanson, the passenger involved in an incident where she reportedly assaulted staff on an Ibom Air flight from Uyo to Lagos.

During a session on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Mike Achimugu, the NCAA’s director of public affairs and consumer protection, explained that the NCAA does not handle criminal prosecution; rather, the courts determine legal outcomes.

Achimugu distinguished the Comfort Emmanson case from that of Wasiu Ayinde, popularly known as KWAM 1, a well-known Fuji musician. He noted that the NCAA had sufficient time to investigate and offer advice to the airline in the KWAM 1 incident. The incident involving KWAM 1 occurred on August 5 aboard a ValueJet flight.

The musician was seen drinking from a flask, which staff suspected contained alcohol — a restricted substance onboard Nigerian aircraft. When asked to surrender the flask, KWAM 1 refused, claiming it contained medication prescribed by his doctor.

Following his refusal, the flight crew deboarded KWAM 1, who then moved to the front of the aircraft in an apparent attempt to prevent its departure. Subsequently, on August 7, the NCAA initially banned KWAM 1 from flying for six months. The ban was later extended to an indefinite period pending a full investigation.

Regarding the Ibom Air incident, Achimugu confirmed that the airline acted independently, based on the available evidence.

“In this case, the airline exercised its rights to do what they needed to do, right? And AON, based on some of the evidences already available, because while the investigations are ongoing, you can still be working with what is available to you,” he said.

“Now, for you who say you are in the industry, when you see a passenger hitting a cabin crew member in the way the lady was doing, and the fight she had with the people who came to restrain her, you may have to agree that the airlines had every right to announce a ban.

“Yeah, of course, one would expect that at the end of all of these things, maybe the ban could be shortened or even removed altogether.

“But as of the moment, if they feel that that’s the right thing, because again, don’t forget, airline staff are also human beings, and they’re also fellow Nigerians.

“Some of them are your brothers and your sisters, too. And they deserve the same courtesy that passengers also deserve. Now, nobody deserves to be beaten up or hit in the manner that occurred in this flight.

“Based on video evidence available, AON has made such a decision. It is within their rights, because they also have been suffering some of these incidents a lot of the time.

“Remember, there was an airport incident where three drunk people had mid-air between London and Nigeria, caused a situation that could have crashed that flight.

“To date, Airpeace feels aggrieved that nobody issued an advisory for those passengers to be blacklisted. But you see, evidence of what happened on board was not made available to the NCAA. So it became a case of he said, she said.

“I just want to put it out there very clearly that the NCAA did not issue an advisory to AON, and AON is within its right to ban any passenger, to blacklist a passenger. Just to make this clear.“

ASA