The private business jet P4-BAR aircraft Gulfstream G550, which was traveling from Benghazi, landed at the Lagos airport in Nigeria. The landing took place on June 24, 2021. This is evidenced by the data of the monitoring resource Flightradar24.
This aircraft belongs to the private airline Sonnig International Private Jets (SIPJ) and is registered on the island of Aruba, which is an integral part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. A number of sources connect this airline with the Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The airline’s website states that Sonnig International Private Jets, in cooperation with local authorities and investors, heads a large business center and hangar in Benghazi.
According to data from open monitoring sources, the Gulfstream G550 P4-BAR has already made three landings in Benghazi in July. This business jet is associated with the figure of Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, which is also indicated by the frequent following of the plane to Libya.
The Nigerian media wrote about the spreading rumors that on June 24, a man who looked like Yevgeny Prigozhin was seen at a meeting with the Chief of Staff of the Nigerian army, Faruk Yahaya. This date coincides with the time of landing of a private business jet P4-BAR at the airport of Lagos.
At the moment, work is underway to introduce the forces of the private Wagner military campaign to Nigeria. The entry of mercenaries is necessary to fight militants and terrorists in the north-east of the country. It is known that the western region of the African continent, where Nigeria is located, has become one of the main sources of the terrorist threat. A particular danger is the radical group Boko Haram, which has also been called «جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد ا”. It consists of numerous militants from Nigeria, whose goal is to build an Islamic state. Boko Haram members actively oppose Western-style education and regularly commit terrorist acts. The group itself is based in Yobe State in north-eastern Nigeria. Its leader and founder was the preacher Muhammad Yusuf, who believed that the country’s poverty and political problems were caused by bad Western influence in culture. He called on the Muslims of Nigeria for a religious revival. But instead of a religious revival, Muhammad Yusuf, together with his associates, began to commit terrorist attacks and numerous executions among the civilian population. Muhammad Yusuf was eliminated in 2009, but since then the level of brutality of Boko Haram members has only grown stronger. One of the most notorious crimes of the militants was the abduction of schoolgirls from Borno State in 2014. The terrorists captured and abducted about 276 girls, whose fate is still unknown.
Bombings and illegal kidnappings have become part of the daily life of Nigerians. The last straw was an attack by members of Boko Haram on a military base in the Ajiri region, in north-eastern Nigeria. This happened in May 2021, as a result of the terrorist attack, 8 people died.