May 4, 2002. Kano. A city swallowed by smoke. EAS Airlines Flight 4226 fell from the sky like a stone, tearing through Gwammaja Quarters and into history. 149 souls perished. One cabin crew member lived.
Her name is Naomi Ukpong Osaghae.
On May 5th, 2026, the calendar will turn 23 years since that Saturday. For most of Nigeria, the date is forgotten. For Naomi, every step since has been a negotiation with pain.
The crash took one leg and left the other to carry the weight of survival, grief, and silence. For four years she knew the wheelchair — its metal cold, its humiliation colder. Through will and therapy she rose. She walked. She worked. She endured.
Now the last leg has collapsed. Doctors say the verdict is clear: comprehensive surgery or a return to the chair she swore never to re-enter. The cost is over ₦30 million. The fear is immeasurable.
“I do not want to go back,” she says. “I lived there for four years. I know what it does to a person. I am still here. But I am afraid for my legs.”
Naomi boarded that aircraft on duty. Twenty-three years later, she says she has been met with abandonment. The airline she flew for — EAS Airlines, once owned by former Kogi State Governor Captain Idris Wada before its later sale to businessman and current Ambassador-designate Senator Jimoh Ibrahim — is long gone from the skies. But its only surviving crew member is still on the ground, still wounded, still waiting.
Capt Wada owned moribund EAS Airline
This is not just a medical appeal. It is a moral reckoning. The International Civil Aviation Organisation speaks of “duty of care” to crew. Nigeria’s aviation charter promises it. Yet here is Naomi, 23 years later, writing urgent global appeals because the system that licensed the plane has not healed the people it broke.
She is not asking for pity. She is asking for memory. For the country to remember that when an aircraft goes down, some people never get to stand back up without help.
Her voice is steady, but the subtext trembles: _How long must a survivor survive alone?_
For 23 years she has been the answer to a grim question — Did anyone make it out? Today she is the question: Will anyone help her stay on her feet?
The crash took seconds. The pain has taken decades. The surgery window is closing.
Nigeria, the world, ICAO, aviation stakeholders — the lone stewardess of Flight 4226 is still on the manifest. And she is still waiting to be rescued.
At The Kiriji Times, we raise our hands for Naomi. We will join in the clamour for her well-being. #HelpNaomi #MedicalAppeal #Survivor #Humanity #Aviation
_To support or verify Naomi’s medical appeal, concerned persons may reach out through official aviation welfare channels or her verified contact points._
