Hadi Sirika Used Ethiopian Airlines Jet to Deceive Nigerians, Witness Testifies

Hadi Abubakar Sirika had one promise he could not afford to leave behind. For eight years as Nigeria’s aviation minister under former President Muhammadu Buhari, he had staked his legacy on a single proposition: that Nigeria would fly again under its own national carrier.

Nigeria Air, he insisted, was coming. Then, in the final hours of the government he served, something did arrive at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. It wore the colours. It carried the logo. Models posed beside it in Nigeria Air uniforms.

It belonged to Ethiopian Airlines.

That is the allegation at the center of one of the most humiliating fraud trials in recent Nigerian political history, and on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja heard the most detailed account yet of how it was allegedly pulled off.

Christopher Odofin, an investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the 12th prosecution witness in the case, testified before Justice S.C. Oriji that the aircraft which appeared on the tarmac on May 27, 2023, three days before the Buhari administration handed over power, was never Nigerian, never operational, and never intended to be. It was, according to the prosecution, a prop built for an audience of one moment.

The documents Odofin read into the court record told a story with almost theatrical specificity. A charter agreement, signed between the Nigerian government and Ethiopian Airlines on May 24, 2023, just five days before Sirika’s tenure expired, laid out the arrangement in plain terms.

The aircraft was to depart Addis Ababa late in the evening of May 26, position itself at the Abuja airport by the morning of May 27, remain for a “static display” of the Nigeria Air livery through May 28, and depart back to Ethiopia in the early hours of May 29, the same morning that power changed hands in Nigeria.

The agreement specified that the plane would be “operated by the Ethiopian Airlines crew in Ethiopian Airlines uniform” and that Nigerian authorities could bring in “local models who will be in Nigeria Air uniforms to pose for ceremonial pictures.” The models, the contract noted, could even fly from Addis Ababa to Abuja on the chartered flight for the occasion.

Within 72 hours, the aircraft had left Nigerian airspace. The Nigeria Air branding was removed from the fuselage. The plane returned to its rightful owner.

The EFCC’s case holds that the entire display was engineered to manufacture the impression that the national carrier had become operational before the close of the Buhari administration.

Sirika served as Nigeria’s aviation minister across two appointments under Buhari: first as Minister of State for Aviation from 2015 to 2019, then as the full Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development from 2019 to 2023.

He was credited with implementing approximately 98 percent of the National Aviation Roadmap, a broad reform plan for the industry, and oversaw the upgrade of major airport terminals along with the initiation of airport concession programs.

Nigeria Air, however, remained his most visible and most elusive commitment, repeatedly promised, repeatedly delayed, and repeatedly repackaged for a public that had grown skeptical of it. When the aircraft appeared at the airport in May 2023, many took it as vindication. The EFCC says it was stagecraft.

Sirika now faces an amended six-count charge alleging abuse of office and misappropriation of public funds exceeding N2 billion (approximately $1.3 million at prevailing rates). He is standing trial alongside his daughter, Fatima Hadi Sirika, his son-in-law, Hamma Jalal Sule, and their company, Al Buraq Global Investment Limited.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty. They were each granted bail of N100 million. In a separate proceeding, the EFCC is also prosecuting Sirika alongside his brother and two companies on charges involving an alleged N19.4 billion in contract fraud.

Wednesday’s testimony also reached beyond the borrowed aircraft into a broader financial trail. According to Odofin, the contract for establishing Nigeria Air was initially awarded to Tianaero Nigeria Limited on April 4, 2022, for a sum exceeding N299 million.

That contract was later extended on October 17, 2022, pushing the total to over N599 million. Tianaero Nigeria Limited is a company linked to Gabriel Tilmann, described in court as a close personal associate of the former minister.

Tilmann has a background as an executive at Lufthansa, Royal Jet, Safi Airways, Qatar Airways, and CHC Ireland, and Tianaero had served as the project leader and transaction advisor for Nigeria Air from as far back as 2016. The EFCC’s position is that the contract extensions were driven not by any competitive process but by the personal relationship between Sirika and Tilmann.

The most striking evidence of that claim came from a mobile phone. Investigators analyzed the device belonging to Enitan Muyiwa Abel, a former Permanent Secretary in Sirika’s ministry, and found a voice note allegedly sent by Sirika while he was in Spain, directing Abel to ensure the contract was awarded to Tianaero Nigeria Limited.

That recording, along with a compact disc containing a separate alleged voice note from Sirika, was admitted into evidence as Exhibit 37 without any objection from defense counsel representing all four defendants. The prosecution applied for the recording to be played in open court at the next hearing.

The formal documentation from Ethiopian Airlines, obtained after the EFCC wrote to the airline and received a response dated June 12, 2023, forms the backbone of the physical evidence against the defendants on the aircraft charge.

All exhibits tendered on Wednesday were accompanied by certificates of identification and authorization, the court heard. The court had earlier ruled that statements made by Fatima Hadi Sirika and Hamma Jalal Sule at the EFCC office were inadmissible, citing non-compliance with relevant legal provisions. The prosecution is led by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN).

Nigeria Air, as a concept, had outlasted nearly every version of itself before that May morning in 2023. It had been announced and suspended, rebranded and relaunched, across years of political cycles and public patience.

When the aircraft finally sat on the tarmac in Abuja, many Nigerians believed the waiting was over. The court is expected to continue hearing evidence on June 17, 2026, when prosecutors plan to play the audio recording and present additional evidence. According to the EFCC, what sat on that tarmac was not a national carrier. It was a rental with a departure time already booked.