Tolulope Arotile’s Family Rejects Air Force’s Death Report, Demands Investigation Into Her Death

While still caught in grief following the loss of their daughter, the family of Nigeria’s first female combat helicopter pilot, Tolulope Arotile, has demanded an investigation into the circumstances surrounding her demise.

Damilola Adegboye, the immediate elder state sister of Tolulope, says the family is not convinced she died in a freak accident and is demanding a full-scale investigation into the cause of the accident.

The Nigeria Air Force had revealed that Tolulope (25) had died when she was inadvertently hit by the reversing car of an excited former Air Force secondary school classmate while trying to greet her. Tolulope allegedly suffered head injuries which led to her death.

While speaking with Punch, Damilola wondered how a vehicle reversing could kill in such a manner.

Her words:

We in the family are not convinced that Tolu can just die like that in a freak accident. I know that the military is well trained in the art of investigation, we want them to carry out a thorough investigation that can convince us beyond all doubts that the incident that led to her death was real.”

According to Damilola, on the day of the incident, she and Tolulope were sleeping in a room when a call came in.

A call came into her phone which she picked but from the way they spoke, I knew the caller must be a senior officer calling her to come to Airforce base. She felt reluctant and I offered to drop her off.

One hour later, I read online that something serious had happened to her. I couldn’t believe that somebody I just dropped off is dead,”