Dana Air has denied another person on wheelchair, Dr. Chike Okogwu his opportunity to board a flight yesterday night just a week after it had denied a woman on wheelchair, Mrs. Oguntoyose Gbemi (pseudonym) the same opportunity.
Dr. Okogwu was at the airport yesterday evening at about 7pm for his scheduled 7:20pm flight from Abuja to Lagos which was rescheduled to 9:05pm.
This was confirmed in a tweet sent to Inclusive News Network, INN by the victim, Okogwu.
He said a lady who gave him boarding pass had informed him that Dana Air policy doesn’t allow wheelchair users to board the aircraft.
Okogwu noted “I got my boarding pass only for Dana Air to say a new policy forbids carrying us with wheelchair”.
He said he moved over to the duty manager who confirmed same because it has a last night flight.
On realising it, Okogwu told the manager that it was Dana Air that changed his flight which hitherto had a 7:20pm flight.
He even offered to pay anyone who agrees to carry him on board as it was the practice in all his years of flights but it also fell on deaf ears.
It got Okogwu so agitated as he had medical appointment to treat an ulcer on his buttocks.
The incident has since turned into a bloody fight after the non-challant and insensitivity actions of Dana Air officials provoked Dr. Okogwu into anger which led him to break their counter and some office equipments, computers and some documents were seen shattered in a video.
INN learnt that Dr. Okogwu was handed over to the police the night of the incident and was asked to write a report of the incident by the officials of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). He was later released at about 1am on Monday.
“It’s turning bloody here in Abuja Airport. If we die we die. I say no to discrimination of Persons with Disabilities in Nig.” Okogwu said in a post on twitter during the fight.
Giving the reason for his outburst, Dr. Okogwu noted that Dana Air didn’t inform him online of any policy on not boarding persons on wheelchair.
“I got here and got a business class boarding pass and was denied flying” he said.
Similar incident had happened a week ago on December 13 where Dana Air denied a woman on wheelchair access to board a flight to Port Harcourt which Dana Air had since denied.
Despite the discrimination against persons with Disability (prohibition) Act 2018 which was assented to by President Buhari in January 2019, Persons with Disabilities have continued to face discriminations of different kinds.
Ironically, Dana Air was in 2019 awarded winner of the Disability Inclusion champion (Transportation Sector) by Project Enable Africa.
Videos of the incidents received by INN