A British Airways (BA) flight from London to Abuja was forced to make an emergency diversion to Barcelona, Spain, after Prof. Osita Obierika, died mid-air.

Obierika, a retired Air Vice Marshal (AVM) of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), was a former Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Training Command, Kaduna and a directing staff at the National Defence College, Abuja.

It was gathered that the aircraft departed London’s Heathrow Airport at 11pm on Sunday, October 5 and was to arrive Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, by 5am on Monday.

However, around 1:30am, the pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted to El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain.

The Octogenarian was said to have been returning to Nigeria from the United Kingdom where he was being treated for cancer.

Fire has engulfed a section of the Rivers State Secretariat Complex in Port Harcourt destroying some property.

Permanent Secretary of the State Ministry of Information, Dr Honour Sirawoo, confirmed the incident saying fire fighters intervened immediately to stop the inferno.

It was gathered that the inferno started at the ground floor of one of the tall buildings popularly called the Podium after the close of work and spread to the office of the newly constituted Rivers State Pension Board.

Sources said the fire started around 4.00pm and was reportedly caused by an electrical fault, though there was no casualty.

Rivers Head of Service, Dr Inyinge Brown, confirmed that no life was lost saying she was happy that the recently rehabilitated State Fire Service was on ground to quench the fire.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mr. Bayo Ojulari, has attributed the recent spike in cooking gas prices to the temporary halt in operations caused by the strike action of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).

Ojulari emphasized that the industrial action disrupted loading and distribution for several days, creating an artificial price surge.

“The increase you saw was relatively artificial because during the strike, movement and loading were delayed by about two to three days,” he explained.

“As operations normalise, it will take a little time for distribution and pricing to stabilise.”

He also accused some retailers of exploiting the brief supply gap to inflate prices, noting that “some people with existing stock took advantage of the situation to raise prices.”

Ojulari assured Nigerians that cooking gas prices would gradually return to pre-strike levels as supply chains recover.

The strike, triggered by the dismissal of Nigerian workers at the Dangote Refinery, disrupted fuel and gas operations nationwide before it was suspended on October 1 following federal government intervention.

The Dangote Group later agreed to reinstate the affected workers, paving the way for normal operations and stabilisation of gas prices.