Father of late young first female helicopter pilot in Nigeria, Engineer Akintunde Arotile has described his late daughter as a wonderful child who combined intelligence with hard-work when she was alive.
Addressing journalists at his GRA Lokoja residence on Wednesday, Engineer Arotile expressed gratitude to God that his late daughter, Tolulope Arotile, was able to achieve her dreams as a little girl before her death.
According to him, at a very tender age, Tolulope pointed to one small aircraft packed on the field and said “Dad, one day I am going to fly that aircraft.” “From that day, she started working towards that and by the of grace God, she secured admission into the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna.
“She bagged a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics from the NDA and became an Air force Cadet.
From there she was sent on several courses abroad and became a pilot. I just thank God that she was able to achieve her dreams before her death,” he said.
Recounting his last conversation with his late daughter, Arotile said “just recently, I called her because she just came back from an operation against the bandits in Katsina.
They gave them one week to rest and so she was sleeping and told me she was in bed resting. “She said she will later go out to make some photocopies and I told her not to be long and to return home on time.
“However, Around 5.30 pm, somebody called me and asked if I have called her today and I said yes. Then the person told me to call her again which I did, but there was no response.
“I became apprehensive and so I called her colleagues and they were all crying on phone. I asked what happened, they were just crying, so I called one of her bosses who told me that she is in the mortuary.
I said, ‘this is someone I spoke with 4 hours ago and by 5pm she was in the mortuary?’.
“I had to drive to Lokoja from Abuja to enable me inform her mother physically because I could not break such news on phone, but when I came she had gone to the prayer mountain. She came back around 8.30 and I told her what I heard, though not confirmed yet.” He commended the Air force authority for identifying with the family in their time of grieve.
He stated that the support from Airforce authority has been overwhelming. Engineer Akintude Arotile worked with Transition Company of Nigeria and retired last year as a power engineer.
Late Tolulope Arotile was the first female combat helicopter pilot in Nigeria.
