President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed profound shock at the plane crash involving an Ethiopian Airliner bound for Nairobi, Kenya, in which all the 149 passengers and eight crew members died.
The release shows a man inspecting what is believed to be wreckage at the crash site of an Ethiopia Airlines aircraft near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
A Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 crashed six minutes after an early-morning takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, killing all 149 passengers and eight crew on board, Ethiopian Airlines said as world leaders offered condolences to distraught next-of-kin. People holding passports from 32 countries and the UN were on board the plane which ploughed into a field just 60 kilometres (37 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa.
President Buhari on behalf of the government and the people of Nigeria, extended his sincere condolences to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, the people of Ethiopia, Kenya, Canada, China and all other nations who lost citizens in the air disaster.
The President in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu in Abuja, also commiserated with the families of the victims and prayed God Almighty to grant the gentle souls of the departed eternal rest. Reacting to the accident from his hometown, Daura, Katsina State, President Buhari said such large scale loss of human lives in a single incident is shocking beyond words.