Today, 26th September might go down as just any other day. Still, to the families of the over a hundred and fifty officers cutting across the Armed Forces of this great nation Nigeria, who lost their lives in the ill-fated Hercules C-130 with registration number NAF 911 plane crash at Ejigbo in Lagos on 26th September 1992, it would be a sad day indeed!
A day not to be forgotten!
Sad in the sense that they were gone forever. Most of them were breadwinners of their families. They had loved ones whom they left behind and died. Some of them had very bright career prospects ahead.
Nothing could have stopped a few of them from becoming military administrators or board members of choice government agencies during the military era, but that fatal death ended all that.
They died with their dreams and visions yet to be attained!
With their death, they left behind parents, siblings, sons, daughters, and those who have to bear the burden of it all… WIVES!
Who on that fateful day became widows, not out of their own making but because fate had destined it.
Twenty-seven years (27) later, What has become of the families, they left behind?
How are they coping?
Are some of them still alive?
What will cross their mind on this particular day?
Questions, questions, and more questions keep crossing my mind.
But as it is on this auspicious day, all I can say from my heart is, “May God Almighty continue to grant them eternal rest and, for the loved ones they left behind, Fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.”