A gun was pointed at the cockpit of Nigeria Airways Flight WT470.
But the gun was not the most dangerous thing aboard the aircraft.
The real danger was already inside containers carried onto the plane from Lagos.
Petrol.
On 25 October 1993, four young Nigerians boarded a routine flight from Lagos to Abuja carrying petrol, lighters, tear gas, jackknives and what Richard Ogunderu later described as toy guns.
Once they seized the aircraft, they revealed the part of their plan that made the situation far more dangerous. They used the petrol to threaten to set the aircraft on fire.
The guns created fear.
The petrol gave that fear a potentially catastrophic consequence.
That distinction is at the heart of the Flight 470 story.
The weapons were only part of the plan
The four hijackers were Richard Ajibola Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Kenny Rasaq Lawal and Benneth Oluwadaisi.
Ogunderu was 19 at the time, according to his later accounts, while the others were in their early twenties.
They boarded Nigeria Airways Flight WT470 at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. The aircraft, an Airbus A310 named Rima River, was scheduled to fly to Abuja.
But Abuja was not where the hijackers intended to go.
They wanted the aircraft taken to Frankfurt, Germany.
Their objective was political. Nigeria was still engulfed in the crisis created by the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election, which had been widely regarded as having been won by Moshood Abiola.
The hijackers wanted international attention focused on the political crisis.
But to achieve that, they first had to control everyone inside the aircraft.
The guns were reportedly fake
This is one of the most striking details of the entire episode.
Later accounts from Ogunderu and his family stated that the guns used during the hijacking were toys.
That means the hijackers did not actually possess the kind of firearms that passengers and crew initially believed they had.
But a fake gun can still be an effective threat if nobody knows it is fake.
Inside an aircraft, there was little opportunity for passengers to test that assumption.
The hijackers therefore had an immediate advantage.
They looked armed.
They behaved as though they were armed.
And they were willing to use another object to make the threat credible.
That object was petrol.
The petrol was real
According to Ogunderu’s later account, the group deliberately brought petrol onto the aircraft.
They also had lighters, tear gas and jackknives.
The petrol was carried in containers inside a bag.
Once the hijacking was underway, they used it as a threat against the passengers.
This changed everything.
A passenger could potentially doubt whether a gun was real.
But there was no such uncertainty about petrol.
Everyone knew what would happen if fuel was spread around an aircraft and ignited.
The hijackers had therefore created two different kinds of danger.
The guns created uncertainty.
The petrol created consequences.
Why petrol was more useful than a working gun
A working firearm would have given the hijackers direct physical power over individuals.
But petrol gave them something different.
It threatened the entire aircraft.
A gun could be pointed at one passenger.
Petrol could be used to threaten everyone.
The cabin of an aircraft is a confined environment. Passengers cannot simply leave. The aircraft cannot land wherever the hijackers wish without cooperation from the crew and air traffic authorities. Every person aboard is dependent on the aircraft remaining intact.
That made the threat of fire particularly powerful.
The hijackers did not necessarily need to ignite the petrol.
They needed everyone to believe they might.
And that was enough to make the threat effective.
The airport security question
How did four young men manage to bring petrol and other prohibited items onto a commercial aircraft?
That question remains one of the most remarkable aspects of the incident.
Ogunderu later described how the group concealed the items and passed through airport security.
Retrospective accounts have also pointed to serious weaknesses in airport security at the time.
The incident demonstrated how vulnerable an aircraft could become when prohibited materials passed through inadequate screening.
The hijackers did not need explosives or sophisticated military equipment.
They needed materials that could be obtained relatively easily and smuggled through a security system that failed to detect them.
The simplicity of the materials was part of what made the incident so extraordinary.
The petrol became their leverage
After taking control of the aircraft, the hijackers issued political demands.
They wanted the annulled 12 June election addressed and demanded changes to Nigeria’s military dominated political system.
Their grievances also included other unresolved national issues.
But political demands alone could not keep a group of passengers under their control.
The hijackers needed leverage.
Petrol provided it.
They threatened to burn the aircraft if their demands were not met.
This meant that the authorities were not negotiating merely to prevent four men from escaping.
They were negotiating to prevent the destruction of a passenger aircraft.
The difference was enormous.
Then they discovered another fuel problem
There was an ironic problem with their plan.
The hijackers wanted to reach Frankfurt.
But Flight WT470 was operating a Lagos to Abuja route.
It did not have enough aviation fuel to simply continue flying to Germany.
This forced the hijackers to look for somewhere to refuel.
They initially considered other destinations before the aircraft eventually landed at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger.
The distinction between the two fuels is important.
The petrol carried by the hijackers was being used as a weapon.
The aviation fuel in the aircraft’s tanks was necessary to keep the aircraft flying.
One gave the hijackers leverage.
The other determined how far they could actually go.
Their need for aviation fuel ultimately prevented them from simply continuing towards Europe.
Niamey changed everything
When the aircraft landed in Niamey, the hijackers’ position became more complicated.
They had wanted movement.
Instead, they were stationary.
They had wanted to reach Europe.
Instead, they were surrounded by the authorities of another country.
The aircraft was now sitting on a runway while negotiations took place around it.
The petrol remained inside.
The threat remained.
But the balance of power was slowly changing.
The longer the aircraft remained on the ground, the more time Nigerien authorities had to prepare their response.
The threat of fire became the central danger
The hijackers reportedly threatened to burn the aircraft if their demands were not met.
This was the point at which the petrol became more important than the imitation guns.
The guns had already served their initial purpose.
They had helped establish control.
But once the aircraft was sitting on the ground, the authorities could potentially wait for an opportunity to neutralise the hijackers.
The petrol made waiting dangerous.
Every hour of the standoff carried the possibility that the hijackers could act on their threat.
The aircraft therefore became a container of potential disaster.
A small quantity of petrol had become a political bargaining instrument.
The passengers were the real leverage
The hijackers did not need to keep every passenger aboard forever.
Many passengers were released during the standoff.
Among those released was Chinese Vice President Rong Yiren, who had been travelling aboard the aircraft.
Other passengers were also gradually freed.
A smaller group remained aboard as negotiations continued.
This was another reason the petrol mattered.
The remaining hostages were not merely bargaining chips.
They were inside the same space as the fuel.
Their safety depended on the hijackers not carrying out their threat.
The political crisis outside the aircraft
The hijacking became more dramatic because of what was happening on the ground in Nigeria.
The country was still dealing with the annulment of the June 12 election.
General Ibrahim Babangida had stepped down in August, but his departure had not ended military influence.
Ernest Shonekan headed an Interim National Government.
The political transition remained deeply unstable.
The four hijackers believed that ordinary political pressure was not enough.
Their solution was extreme.
They would take a plane, threaten to burn it and force their demands into the international news.
The petrol was therefore not simply a weapon.
It was part of the mechanism through which they intended to make themselves heard.
The hijacking lasted for days
The standoff continued for approximately four days.
During that period, the hijackers remained aboard the aircraft with the remaining hostages while Nigerien authorities negotiated and prepared.
The longer the crisis continued, the more difficult the hijackers’ original plan became.
They had intended to use the aircraft to reach Frankfurt.
Instead, they were trapped in Niamey.
Their political message had reached international audiences, but they had lost control over the wider situation.
They were now waiting for the authorities to decide how the crisis would end.
The final assault
On 28 October 1993, Nigerien security forces stormed the aircraft.
The hijacking ended.
The four men were captured.
Ogunderu was wounded.
But the operation also had a fatal consequence.
Ethelbert Nwanze Igwe, an assistant purser aboard the aircraft, was killed during the rescue operation.
The hijacking had begun with four young men trying to force attention onto a political crisis.
It ended with a member of the airline crew dead.
The petrol had never needed to be ignited for the situation to become deadly.
The threat alone had helped create a crisis that eventually required an armed assault.
The forgotten importance of fuel
There is a tendency to remember Flight 470 through the image of four teenagers with guns.
That image is incomplete.
The more revealing image is of four young men carrying petrol into an aircraft.
The guns were reportedly fake.
The petrol was real.
And the aircraft was real.
That combination created a dangerous form of psychological control.
The hijackers did not have to possess overwhelming firepower.
They only needed to convince everyone aboard that they could destroy the aircraft.
Petrol shaped the journey too
Fuel influenced the hijacking in another way.
The aircraft could not reach Frankfurt without refuelling.
That forced the hijackers to land in Niamey.
Once there, their escape plan effectively collapsed.
The location of the aircraft became fixed.
The authorities gained time.
The hijackers lost mobility.
This makes the fuel story even more unusual.
The substance that gave them their most frightening threat was not the same fuel that allowed the aircraft to continue its journey.
Their petrol gave them power over the cabin.
Their lack of sufficient aviation fuel took away their freedom of movement.
What happened to the hijackers?
The four men remained imprisoned in Niger for years.
They eventually returned to Nigeria in 2002 after spending more than nine years in detention.
By then, Nigeria had changed dramatically.
General Sani Abacha had taken power in November 1993, just weeks after the hijacking.
Abacha’s military government eventually ended after his death in 1998.
Nigeria returned to civilian government in 1999.
Moshood Abiola, whose June 12 mandate had been central to the hijackers’ demands, died in custody in 1998.
By the time the hijackers returned home, the political landscape they had tried to influence had been transformed.
Why the petrol matters so much
The petrol is more than an interesting detail in the story.
It explains how the hijackers could maintain control despite reportedly carrying fake guns.
It explains why the passengers and authorities had to take their threats seriously.
It explains why the standoff could not simply be dismissed as a political stunt.
And it helps explain why the crisis eventually required a dangerous armed intervention.
The guns were the visible threat.
The petrol was the hidden threat.
The guns made people believe the hijackers were dangerous.
The petrol gave them a means of making that belief real.
The object that changed the entire hijacking
There is something almost unsettling about how ordinary the petrol was.
It was not an exotic weapon.
It was not military technology.
It was not an advanced explosive.
It was fuel.
Something Nigerians encountered every day.
But inside a passenger aircraft, its meaning changed completely.
That is what makes Flight 470 so memorable.
The hijackers did not need sophisticated weapons to create an international crisis.
They needed a confined aircraft, imitation guns, real petrol and a political grievance powerful enough to make them willing to risk everything.
For several days in October 1993, that combination held an aircraft and its passengers hostage.
The guns attracted attention.
The petrol created the danger.
And that is why, when the history of Flight 470 is examined closely, the most important weapon aboard may not have been a weapon at all.
Author’s Note
The most revealing detail about Flight 470 is not that four young Nigerians reportedly carried fake guns onto the aircraft. It is that they also carried real petrol and used the threat of fire to make their control believable. The guns helped create fear, but the petrol gave that fear a potentially catastrophic consequence. It turned a political hijacking into a genuine threat to the lives of everyone aboard and helped keep the aircraft at the centre of an international standoff for days. The story ultimately shows how an ordinary substance, placed in an extraordinary setting, became the most important instrument in one of Nigeria’s strangest political hijackings.
References
The Archivist, Archivi.ng, “Four young Nigerians did not like an election’s outcome, so they hijacked a plane,” 25 October 2024.
Richard Ogunderu, Sahara Reporters, “Our June 12 Plane Hijack Story,” 20 June 2009.
Akin Adewakun, Nigerian Tribune, “How we carried out the 1993 Nigerian Airways hijack, Ogunderu.”
Kingsley Obiejesi, International Centre for Investigative Reporting, “FLASHBACK: How four teenagers hijacked a Nigeria Airways plane ‘for MKO Abiola’,” 25 October 2017.
The New York Times, “Foes of Nigeria Rulers Hijack Plane to Niger,” 26 October 1993.
The New York Times, “Hijackers of a Nigerian Jet Are Captured After 3 Days,” 28 October 1993.
Gbenga Bada, The Nation, “Hijack ’93 debuts on Netflix,” 26 October 2024.
Jimasayo Opanuga, The Guardian Nigeria, “June 12: Babangida’s regret too little, too late, says Nigeria Airways flight hijackers,” 12 March 2025.Meta Description
Petrol, not the fake guns, made Nigeria Airways Flight 470’s 1993 hijacking so dangerous, giving four young men terrifying leverage over the aircraft.
