NAF Opens Investigation Into Flying Officer’s Death, Two Suspects Arrested

The Nigerian Air Force opens an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of its Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, who died on Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in a road accident as a result of head injuries sustained from a road traffic accident at NAF Base Kaduna.

In an interview, the NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, said two suspects are being held over Arotile’s death.

NAF had earlier explained that Arotile was “inadvertently hit by the reversing vehicle of an excited former Air Force secondary school classmate while trying to greet her.”

Speaking in an interview with Saturday PUNCH on Friday, 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.