#Thread Chief MKO Abiola: Multi millionaire investor, newspaper mogul, banker, industrialist, sports promoter, airline baron, philanthropist, shipping magnate, & politician. The first Nigerian to own a private aircraft, altho others crowded after him #Thread

(2) He bought a Hawker Siddeley 125 eight-seat business jet for himself, in 1972. Next, he built a small hangar at Old Domestic, the General Aviation section of Lagos airport, for the aircraft #Aviation #AvGeeks #PrivateJet #History #Nigeria

(3) He soon added a second HS and launched Concord Airlines as a platform to rent out the aircraft, when he wasn't using them. He eventually flew several HS airframes, including 5N-RCN (a play on Radio Corporation of Nigeria, one of his businesses) In a...

(4) ...local transaction, he sold 5N-MAY, an HS125-600 to Kings, who fly Hawker 800 charters today. Before long the glamour had infected the nation's elite, with the Dantatas of Kano buying an HS; Chief Igbinedion of Benin City, who would later establish...

(5) ...the scheduled carrier Okada Air, got an HS, which his OGI Charters also traded with. By th early 1980s, Chicago billionaire Chief Harry Akande was flying a Learjet 25D and Alh Isyaku Rabiu of Kano, a Falcon 50 trijet. The Rabiu aircraft was featured...

(6) ...in "A squandering of riches", a BBC TV special on the appetite of Nigerians for the good life. It was hosted by the artiste Onyeka Onwenu, & was shown to Nigerians by NTA. Around this time too, the bottler Chief Olori of Warri, got embarrassed when...

(7) ...expatriate engineers in Lagos helped expatriate pilots vanish with his HS125, from Old Domestic. Authors of the drama were the aircraft dealers who sold the plane to Olori. They said he owed them money. The aircraft was impounded when it stopped at...

(8) ...Abidjan en route London. Idiagbon & Buhari promptly clamped the engineers in detention, where they remained till Babangida seized power. Someone who didn't need anybody's example to fly private was Ambassador Antonio Dehinde Fernandez, who was...

(8) ...already a globetrotter in a Gulfstream GII, in the 1970s. In fact Fernandez is said to have been one of Akande's inspirations. In 1990, Abiola caused a stir when he referred to his HS as a "jalopy." You heard right, jalopy! The World Cup was in full...

(9) swing & he needed the jet to fly to Rome to cheer th Cameroonian team, which had been adopted by Africa. But it was grounded for repair of its fuel system. Many were astounded because at that time, car ownership was an achievement but here was this man...

(10) ...describing an aircraft in derisive terms! Nonetheless, in Aviation circles, his remark may not have raised eyebrows because by 1990, the undisputed leader of the jet set was Chief Igbinedion. He was flying a pair of BAC 1-11 airliners equipped with...

(11) ...executive interiors. One of them had just been the Philippino Presidential aircraft with an interior described in superlatives. These aircraft were several times larger than the HS. By the 1990s, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyawu of Owerri was flying a...

(12) ...Corporate BAC 1-11 but compared to Igbinedion's aircraft, his own was bland. With the dust over the Falcon a distant memory, Isyaku Rabiu was now flying a Gulfstream GIII, second only to the GIV, in that era. In fact Rabiu's machine was said to be...

(13) ...the best at the Gulfstream lot when he took delivery at Savannah, Georgia, in the US. These days, any Nigerian can own a private jet if his pocket is deep enough. But the prestige associated with it seems to be less. The exclusiveness of the past...

(14) ...it seems, is gone. Things are no longer as they used to be. ENDS.