Kano — The arms-carrying plane impounded last week at Malam Aminu Kano International Airport on its way to Malabo in Equatorial Guinea from Ukraine is yet to be released. The crew and their linkman in Nigeria are now in Abuja in the custody of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) for full-scale investigation into the matter as so directed by the federal government.

Daily Trust learnt that the seven crew members and the man believed to be their linkman in the country were in the early hours of Monday moved to Abuja by road contrary to speculations that they were already flown to Abuja last Thursday.

Source at the airport said the huge consignment of weapons found in the aircraft are still intact and have not been removed from the plane. When officials from DMI ransacked the plane last Friday, the weapons were established to be only mines and ammunition in 18 crates neatly packaged in the aircraft.

A senior official at Kano airport who craved for anonymity described the situation as a jig-saw puzzle and also a matter that should be handled with tact because of its diplomatic implications.

"And that is probably why the federal government is silent over the matter as no government official is ready to volunteer information about the situation. Even the other party involved, that is the Ukrainian authorities in Nigeria, is not ready to utter a single word over the whole issue," he said.

Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Abdurrahman Bello Dambazau used the opportunity of the 3rd annual conference and general assembly for the Society for Peace Studies and Practice in Kano on Monday to visit Governor Ibrahim Shekarau during which the two personalities were said to have discussed the plane issue behind closed doors.

Meanwhile, the crew linkman, simply identified as Sylvester, was yesterday disowned by Meridian Airline Services Ltd, saying the man was never their staff. Sylvester was widely reported in the media as staff of Meridian Air.

Public Affairs manager of the Meridian Airline Services Ltd Alhaji Ibrahim Yakasai told Daily Trust that when officials of the company went to the man at the airport commandant's office, Sylvester never claimed to be their staff.

Yakasai also said the man may be an employee of a foreign airline bearing a similar name to Meridian Airline Services Ltd.