Late Tolulope Arotile: NAF succumb to pressure, begin investigation, arrest two

Nigerian Air Force on Friday stated that it was investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile.

This investigation is coming after the country was thrown into mourning on Tuesday when the NAF announced that Arotile, Nigeria’s first female combat helicopter pilot, died at the NAF base in Kaduna State from a road traffic accident.

Onyxnews Nigeria later obtained that Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile was knocked down and killed by an excited class mate’s car.

This reliable online news platform reports that NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, explained the investigation report in an interview with journalists, saying at the end of the investigation, “whatever information needs to go out will go out.”

NAF spokesman, Daramola, said, “First of all, in my first statement, I said she died from a road traffic accident. I further clarified the nature of the road traffic accident where one of her excited classmates who saw her reversed his car which led to him hitting her and knocking her down. This led to head injuries and a lot of haemorrhaging which ultimately resulted in her death.

“The two boys are in custody and the NAF will do a thorough investigation into the matter. It is a routine process – our own processes that are ongoing because it happened inside a NAF base. At the appropriate time, whatever information needs to go out will go out. But we cannot pre-empt that investigation process.

“Whatever needs to be known will be known; it is standard practice. So, we are investigating the circumstances leading to her death by a road traffic accident. It is an investigation because it may go beyond NAF.”

Meanwhile, the NAF spokesman later in a release on Friday noted that Arotile would be buried Thursday, July 23, at the National Military Cemetery, Abuja, with full military honours.