The Benue Hike Group has embarked on an Extreme Hike tagged “The Return To Ngokur” on the 25th and 26th March 2022
Making the ascent were 50 BHG hikers, accompanied by police escorts as well as guides and porters from the host village.
The night hike took the group through challenging terrain, in pitch darkness, up a trail that ended at the highest point of Mount Ngokur at 812m/2663ft above sea level.
Just below this height lies some remains of the Dornier 228 army plane that crashed and killed twelve high-ranking officers of the Nigerian military, with six survivors. They had been flying to a meeting at Obudu in Cross River State on the 17th of September 2006.
Here MTN Nigeria Network signals were found and one of the officers’ phones was used then by 12-year old Detimbir Chia (now a 2nd Lieutenant) to make the call that aided the evacuation team to locate the crash site.
This historic site is located in the remote village of Mbakunu in the Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State.
The hike was in honor of the fallen heroes of the plane crash, and the need to document the height of the mountain as well as celebrate Nigeria’s largest mobile network’s life-saving presence!
At this height, MTN signals are strong; members of the hiking party were able to talk to their friends and families, watch the Nigeria vs. Ghana world cup qualifying play-off match, and also Livestream the event.
With the crashed aircraft vandalized almost to extinction and the memories almost lost, our group is moving to recreate a prototype of the aircraft from waste materials and produce a plaque containing the names of the fallen heroes celebrating MTN’s lifesaving presence at the crash site.
This opens the mountain up to tourism, creating employment for the villagers, and preserving on the hills the memories of that sad day in Nigeria’s history.
The main thing in this Hike is Benue Hikers doing this to remember the fallen Heroes and the Living ones at that mountain where the plane crashed one of the Survivors of that plane is Maj Gen Angbazo retired and a few others
