There was jubilation in Rivers State on Tuesday when the Legacy 600 aircraft recovered by the Nyesom Wike-led administration finally touched down at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state.
Rivers women and youths rushed to the airport to entertain people with their cultural displays designed to celebrate the return of the state-owned Legacy 600 Aircraft, which the Governor said was secretly abandoned in Germany by the immediate past administration.
Wike, who was on ground to receive the Legacy 600 aircraft, said that the recovery and eventual return of the lost asset of the state was a reality and not mere politics.
The Governor explained that it took intelligence report for his administration to discover such asset, owned by the Rivers State government.
According to him, the immediate past administration flew the aircraft to far away Germany, without any record of it made available to his administration.
He said: “To the glory of God, the plane is back and Rivers people can see, Nigerians can see, it is not that we are playing politics. All we are saying, we never knew, nobody told us until we got intelligence that we have this asset somewhere.”
He recalled that the Legacy 600 Aircraft was purchased by the Dr. Peter Odili’s led administration to serve the interest of Rivers people, but was abandoned with the General Atomics Aerotec in Munich, Germany by Chibuike Rotimi Ameachi’s administration since 2012.
He said: “What is very important to all of us here today is that when we came into power in 2015, nobody handed over any report or gave us handover note to let us know where such asset of the State was, only for us to hear in 2019 that this asset is somewhere.”
Wike said because air transportation was a more technical area, great care was taken to put the Legacy 600 Aircraft into its best form to undertake air travel effectively.
The Governor said that so much money was expended by the State government on the aircraft, money that he said would have been put into other developmental projects if his administration had known of the abandonment early.
He said in fixing the aircraft, certificate of air worthiness, issued by the Nigerian government, was secured for the aircraft to return to Nigeria.
