The Nigerian vice president Yemi Osinbajo he is safe and well, having escaped unscathed from the crash of the helicopter that carried him to the north-central state of Kogi. This was stated by Osinbajo's spokesman, Laolu Akande, stating that the vice president is carrying out his commitments normally in the state of Kogi, and that the other nine passengers of the helicopter have not been shocked either. As reported by the Nigerian news agency "Nan", the hired helicopter that carried the vice president and his team crashed in Kabba, in the state of Kogi, in an incident of which the investigators still investigate the causes. President Muhammadu Buhari he sent his best wishes to Osinbajo, praising the "tenacious spirit" of the vice president, who "survived a helicopter crash in the state of Kogi". The number two in the government has received numerous messages of support from the Nigerian political world.
The helicopter dropped in Kabba is a AgustaWestland AW139 in VVIP version, as reported by the BBC, several British, American and African media. The causes of the accident are not yet clear. It is not the first time that the same helicopter, supplied to the vice president, has had an accident: in June 2018 it was forced to make an emergency landing immediately after take-off. The AW139 is part of the fleet of three VVIP machines sold by the Italian company of the Leonardo group, formerly Finmeccanica, to the Nigerian operator Caverton in 2011.
Between 2000 and 2011 the Lombard helicopter operator would have obtained numerous contracts in sub-Saharan Africa in sometimes questionable ways, reconstructed through unpublished testimonies and documents from the bestseller by Alessandro Da Rold "Pecunia not olet - The mafia in public industry, the Finmeccanica case", Published by the publisher Chiarelettere in January 2019.
In addition to Nigeria, the AgustaWestland helicopters in the VVIP version have been sold to various governments in the world, including the Indian one where the contract was however canceled due to the supposed mega-bribe paid to some military authorities of the Asian country, which is still subject of a trial in India.
Nigeria faces presidential elections on February 16, the sixth since the country's return to multi-partyism in 1999. 71 candidates will be contesting the highest office for the outgoing president, in what will be the sixth elections. The race promises to be difficult for Buhari's party, the Congress of All Progressives (APC), in the throes of a profound crisis since, last August, the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, abandoned him to join the ranks of the main opposition party, the Democratic People's Party (PDP). His removal triggered a wave of defections - 37 deputies and 15 senators - who left the APC in the minority in the upper house of parliament, which now sees the PDP with 58 members as its first political force, followed by 48 of the Apc. Precisely on the occasion of these defections there were some moments of tension between the president and his deputy, at that time interim president, then promptly denied by Buhari.