Yakowa's body arrives Kaduna...

The remains of the Late Governor of Kaduna State, Patrick Yakowa, and that of his aide and friend, Dauda Tsoho, arrived in Kaduna airport aboard a Nigerian Air Force cargo plane at 2.45pm on Tuesday.

The bodies were received by hundreds of wailing sympathisers who thronged the airport.

Bodies of the late governor as well as those of other four, out of the six victims of Saturday’s naval helicopter crash in Okorobo, Bayelsa State, had been airlifted from Yenagoa aboard a Nigerian Air Force Super Puma Helicopter marked NAF 567 at 11.45am.

The other bodies that left Yenagoa alongside that of Yakowa and Tsoho were those of an ex-National Security Adviser Gen. Owoye Azazi’s bodyguard, Warrant Officer Mohammed Kamal; and the two naval pilots, Commander Murtala Mohammed Daba, and Lt. Adeyemi Sowole.

The PUNCH learnt that the NAF aircraft stopped at the Port Harcourt airport in Rivers State where the bodies were flown to different destinations in different aircrafts.

Yakowa and the four, as well as Azazi, were victims of the crashed Augusta 109 Naval Helicopter in Okoroba, Bayelsa State, on Saturday.

They met their death while returning from the burial of the father of President Goodluck Jonathan’s aide, Oronto Douglas. Douglas is Jonathan’s Adviser on Research, Documentation and Strategy.

The remains of Azazi, an indigene of Bayelsa, were however left in the mortuary of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, for burial on a date yet to be announced by the government.

While the bodies of Yakowa and Tsoho were airlifted from Port Harcourt to Kaduna, those of Daba and Sowole were taken to their respective home states in Kano and Lagos.

Two black caskets with silver handles bore Yakowa’s and Tsoho’s remains while three brown caskets with golden handles contained the bodies of three others.

The caskets which were covered with the Nigerian flags were accompanied by Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson; his wife, Rachel; Deputy Governor John Douglas; a former governor of the state, Diepreye Alameiseigha; commissioners and other members of the state executive council.

At the special valedictory session in honour of Yakowa at the Executive Chambers of the Government House before the late governor’s remains departed the state, were also the Flag Officer Commanding, Central Naval Command, Rear Admiral Johnson Olutoyin; commanders of the Air Force Mobility Command, the Joint Task Force, and the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Kingsley Omire, among others.