Family Remembers MIC Casket Boss, Tunji Okunsanya One Year After Plane Crash

It is exactly one year after the fatal Associated Airlines plane crash near the Lagos Airport terminal, where the likes of Magbamawo Industrial Company, (MIC Caskets), boss Tunji Okunsanya and his son, Olatunji Okunsanya Jnr died, and others, died while conveying the body of the late former Governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu, for his burial, but the pains inflicted on the family by that incident is yet to wane.

Okunsanya who died along some of his staff members, is being remembered by his family including Nollywood actress, Eniola Badmus, who is his niece.

Though the tears may have dried up, the memories of the departed, especially for Dame Mobola Erogbogbo, the late MIC boss' wife and mother of Olatunji Okunsanya Jnr who died with his father, Olatunji Okunsanya, seems very fresh.

Speaking on her grief to the Nation Newspaper, Dame Erogbogbo recalled the day, explaining that her son had dropped her off at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on her way to London for an exhibition. Right after checking her in, Junior, fondly called Jay, insisted that the mother must take a photograph with him before departing.

On October 2, last year, Tunji Junior was the one that took me to the airport. I was going to England for an exhibition. He took me to the airport and we checked in.

As I was about to go in, he said: ‘Mummy come back. I want us to take photograph together’ and I jokingly said to him: ‘Jay, what do you mean by photograph? I hope you want me to get to this London safely because we have never taken photograph at the airport before’.

I asked him why he wanted the photo. He said: ‘Mummy, let’s just take it’ and an employee who accompanied us to the airport took the photograph and he immediately sent it to the sister in London, even before I got there.

While we were on board, there was a little turbulence and my mind flashed back to the photograph and it created anxiety in me but I had no clue that it had nothing to do with me but was all about my dear son.

When I arrived in the UK, I tried his father’s line to inform him that I had arrived safely but his line did not go through. I called his line and luckily it rang and we spoke extensively.

I even told him about the turbulence we experienced on air and my fear about the picture. We laughed about it and he told me about the publication that Thisday did on him and he was so excited about it and wanted me to see it. I had no clue that it was going to be my last discussion with him.

In the morning, I woke up and my grandson came to my room and appealed that I should put on the computer for him for 10 minutes because his parents won’t allow him to watch TV during the week, and when they all left home, I decided to go and sleep but I could not sleep.

I tried to put on the TV but could not until my daughter came back and put the TV on Sky News and I saw the news highlight: ‘Associated Airline crashed in Nigeria, two dead.'

I shouted and informed my daughter that it was Junior’s plane because I was aware of the arrangement for the company to convey Agagu’s body to Akure before I left Nigeria.

It was about 9.45 am and we called Junior’s phone and it rang but no response. We started calling Nigeria, but nobody was willing to tell us anything, and people I had not spoken to for a long time were all calling me and my daughter and it was at that time I knew something had gone wrong.

All of them refused to tell us the true situation until a family friend called and I asked him not to lie to us about what had happened. He said ‘Mummy, it’s all about you’ and I know that the worst had happened.

It was like a dream and it has not been an easy experience. I had to cancel my booking for the exhibition and come back to Nigeria.

I was very fond of him. We were living together and he was supposed to get married this year, and each time I teased him about scattering things, he would say it was only for a while that when he got married, I would be the one missing and sending for him. I did not know that it was not going to be.