Tears, emotions and tributes flowed as remains of Nigeria’s first combat helicopter pilot, Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, were buried at the National Military Cemetery, Abuja, on Thursday.
Military personnel and other sympathisers gathered at the cemetery to pay their last respects and bid her farewell.
Earlier, her body was brought into the cemetery by an ambulance with registration number AF 442, belonging to the Nigerian Air Force.
Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal, Abubakar Sadique; Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello; Mijnister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen; the House Committee Chairman on Air Force, Bala Ib’n Nalla and the family members of the deceased were at the funeral to pay the 24-year-old first female combat pilot last respect.
Also at the cemetery was the House of Representatives Committee Chairman on Air Force, Bala Ib’n Nalla as well as other sympathisers to bid the late officer farewell.
Chief of Air Staff, Governor Bello and other sympathisers also laid wreath at the funeral.
Officiating Chaplain, Group Captain (Rev) Dogo Gani, in his funeral sermon, extolled Arotile’s virtues, describing her as the “Deborah of our time.”
Nigeria was thrown into mourning on Tuesday last week when the Nigerian Air Force first announced that Arotile had died from an auto accident inside the NAF base in Kaduna State.
NAF had said she sustained head injuries from the accident when she was “inadvertently hit by the reversing vehicle of an excited former Air Force secondary school classmate while trying to greet her.”
The AirForce said Arotile was hit by an ex-classmate, Nehemiah Adejoh, who had no valid driver’s licence, declaring the matter a civil case, which would be handed over to the police for further investigation and prosecution of Adejoh and two other suspects.
