More details are emerging from the crash:

Many more people would have survived the ADC plane crash at Abuja Airport on Sunday if the emergency services had got there faster, villagers near the scene
of the crash said yesterday.
They also revealed the Sultan of Sokoto was found clutching a Holy Qur’an, prayer beads and his passport. His body was the only one that was not burned, villagers said.
Two of the young men who were working on a farm when the plane crashed said many more people were alive in the wreckage of the plane when it crashed.
Speaking to Daily Trust at Tungan Madaki, Mr. Rabiu Madaki Adamu said: “There were people alive at the time we got there. A good number of them were trapped under some of the plane parts. We saw a good number of them beckoning at us to go and help them, we regret we cold not do much because we were afraid that we may be trapped in the burning fire. We shed tears as we saw most of them burnt to death.“If the police, soldiers and the fire service had reported quicker, I am sure they would have saved very many of them. Very few corpses were seen after the crash. Majority of the people were killed by fire and thick smoke.”

Shehu also found out:

Airline sources admitted yesterday the plane was the only one in ADC’s
fleet still working. It was so “overused” flight engineers refused to
travel in it because of technical faults, sources said.
Daily Trust
yesterday reported the pilot ignored a directive from the Control Tower not to
take off due to bad weather. Senior air force sources have confirmed this. A
reliable source at the ADC airline office in Abuja told Daily Trust that the
pilot of the crashed plane, Captain Atanda Kolawole only graduated as a
qualified pilot in 2005.
The source said: “Because the management of the
airline refused to maintain the plane by doing all the necessary repairs, no
flight engineer agreed to follow the plane. By right, every passenger plane must
have a flight engineer on board to attend to all emergencies. This one had none.
“The plane was the only serviceable plane we had. Two others are currently
grounded in Lagos. The crashed plane was being over used before the accident.
The same plane will fly from Lagos to Abuja to Calabar to Lagos to Abuja again
then go to Yola for night stop in a day. It also goes on international route,
ones a week to Obudu in the West Coast. In addition to all these, it goes top
Sokoto very Friday and Sunday. You can imagine what the plane has been passing
trough.”The source also revealed the plane filled its tanks with jet fuel in
Abuja because they were not sure
they could get any in Sokoto.

Also he was introduced to an airforce officer who said:

he had been monitoring radio traffic on the day of the crash. He said the pilot of the crashed ADC plane was repeatedly warned by the control tower on the bad weather around the airport but he insisted on flying.
He said: “We were monitoring all the signals between the control tower and the three planes on the ground through our sets. He said when the pilot decided to taxi the plane in readiness for a take off, the control tower called him and gave him the latest weather report which was not good for a take off, but that the pilot refused to respond to the control tower.”
The air force officer also said they heard when the control tower was advising the pilot on the detail weather condition and telling him of the level he should fly and the accelerating point of the flight to tally with the wind and the rain storm since he insisted on taking off, but that the pilot refused to respond to them or even acknowledge the message.He said almost immediately, the control tower declared the plane missing. He said few minutes later an air force aircraft that landed at the airport reported that they saw smoke close to the end of the tarmac but could not ascertain its source. After a little while the village farmers reported the crash, he said.

Yesterday another plane crashed. It seems incredible that in a little over a year over 300 people have been killed crashes like this.
I got a call from a friend in Zaria asking if it was true that the Sultan of Sokoto was among the dead. One of the executives of the paper was at the airport and rushed to the scene of the crash. He had helped pull out the Sultan's charred body himself.
I suppose that’s how news really travels in Nigeria. Within minutes it must have spread over the Northern states.
Our reporters had to trek through kilometres of bush to get to the site of the crash, stripping off to ford deep rivers, TV camera men holding their equipment above their heads. One looked very stressed by the experience. He'd seen one of the bodies lying there, virtually torn in half by the seatbelt.
The news editor said today: "It will be tough to get people to talk about the succession. It’s on everybody’s mind, but they won't talk about it for a few days. But right now everyone is thinking about the succession."
Air crashes like this must be one of the only times Nigerian elites can't buy their way out of danger. They can go to Saudi or US hospitals, instead of being forced to use Nigerian ones; send their children to European schools, rather than the Nigerian ones; they can buy their way out of the law, instead of being subject to the mess of a court system that exists here. But if they want to travel they have to place their lives in the hands of a system which is patently not working. I will not be surprised if it is found that safety checks were lacking, and that someone made some money on the side because of it. As Jerry Rawlings famously said: “The fish rots from the head down”.
Incredibly the governor of Kogi state's three daughters all survived the crash. He spent the day giving blood for his daughter in intensive care at the National Hospital. I wonder how long they’ll stay there.

The fear of rape has spurred women to join vigilante groups in a village scheduled to be demolished along airport road.
The village of Aleita has been terrorised by a series of armed robberies since the village was marked for demolition, residents said.
Stories circulating about two women brutally raped in recent days have prompted women to take part in what is normally considered a man’s duty.
Janet Oyebade, a 42-year-old school teacher who lives in the waterfront area of the village said: “I decided to join the vigilantes because my husband works far away, and it is not safe for a woman to sleep here alone. We have not slept in two weeks.”
At the weekend she and other women in the village participated in the all night vigil.
Participants said they were not armed, but the men banged drums and blew whistles to scare away robbers. There are about ten female members of the waterfront group.
Mrs Oyebade, who has five children, said: “We have no protection other than what god gives us. But we have to come out and protect ourselves.”
City News heard reports of two women raped in the village. The first two weeks ago the woman had just given birth days before. Robbers came, raped and killed her.
The second woman, according to residents, is pregnant.
Virtually every person City News spoke to had heard of the story. But whenever reporters got to houses that people said the women lived in, neighbours said they heard it happened elsewhere. Reporters could not track down anyone who knew the victims personally, or verify the stories through other means.
But the threat of armed robbery is enough to spur women into taking direct action.
Taiwo Adejumo, 41, a trader with one child said: “We burn tyres and bang drums and the men blow their whistles all night. We hope that the Robbers hear we are awake and do not come here.”
The residents do not yet know when the demolishing will start. Most are taking apart their houses and selling the materials in preparation for moving to Gwagwalada, 52 kms away from the city.
Mrs Oyebade says when the bulldozers come she might move into the primary school she teaches in. She said: “I have already packed my household together. Hopefully they will not demolish the school because it is a government building.”
She moved to the waterfront area of Aleita five years ago with her husband. They built their own house.
Mrs Adejumo said: “Robbery is on a daily basis here. It has got much worse since the demolitions started. We hear stories about women being raped, we want to protect ourselves, because no one else can.”

The villages along Abuja’s airport road prepared for the arrival of bulldozers this week, and most residents were busy removing all the valuable fittings from their houses. But one group of men in Aleita decided their imminent eviction was too much to worry about, and sat down to play draughts instead.
We found the group of men playing under the shade of some trees, sitting with two boards on their knees, playing game after game. In the background people hammering their security doors out of plaster walls and the revving of overloaded cars could be heard.
“What is the point? Some of us have had our houses demolished four or five times. We have nothing left,” said Timothy Oje, a 52 year old family man, “Why should we stir ourselves?”
His feeling about the way Abuja is run is unambiguous: “They are demons, they are wolves” he says.
He came to Abuja in the 1990s when it was beginning. Eventually settling in Chika along the airport road. He said: “Abuja was a desert. The government was saying come and develop Abuja, come, come! People came in their masses to develop the city. Now Abuja is developed, they are saying go away. It doesn’t make any sense.”
He ran a shop in the suburb that was demolished last year. As yet nothing has been developed on the site of his old home.
Anger beginning to show in his voice Timothy says: “They could have made a development to show us that they were serious. This is the reasons. Right now we know this area is for them.
“My business is paralysed, my house is gone, and all the money I saved up for my business is exhausted. I am now going home penniless. What kind of government do we have?”
Timothy, an indigene of Otuku, Benue state, is contemplating giving in and returning. His wife has already gone back. “My wife is making arrangements there for my children. Why not just go back? But I feel that I have wasted everything I had.”
Nasir El Rufa’i is on record as saying “Abuja is not for everyone”. Last week at an event in Kuje for International Literacy Day, he and other FCT ministers said illiterate migrants to the city were “distorting the master plan for the capital”.
Timothy says: “We know that we are their servants, we drive their cars, we dry clean their clothes, where do we stay?”
The FCT has said it has a duty to clear slums like Aleita. They are unhygienic and disease ridden.
But that doesn’t impress Jerry Abba, a 35 year old engineer, he said: “They planned Asokoro, Maitama, the Federal government made the plans for themselves. You’re supposed to carry the poor along, provide low cost housing that people can afford. We have been waiting for 25 years for them to help us with sanitation and such things. I am so bitter because even under the military government we had it better than this. Where is the dividend of democracy?”
Noone is in any doubt what will happen to the land. “They will give it to themselves for sure,” said Mike Okey, a 46-year-old businessman. “And before that it will not be to their advantage, all this are will be bush. Robberies are already bad on the airport road, with no one living here, they are bound to be worse.” 

This week the FCT minister banned motorcyle taxis from the capital.
I woke up last Sunday to a different Abuja.

We don’t have Okadas in London. There is one company that uses a small fleet of motorbikes to ferry high-flying executives from the city to London’s airports in 25 minutes guaranteed. But the mayor’s office won’t allow motorcycle taxis that you can hail from the street. They’re too dangerous, he says. The powerful licensed taxi association, worried about protecting its profits, wouldn’t stand for it either. But also I’m not convinced there would be any demand for motorcycle taxis in London. People generally see riding a motorbike as a very risky activity, best left to those people doctors call “walking organ donors”.
But then, we have a functioning public transport system which, although Londoners love to complain bitterly about it, is so much part of our life that even last year’s terrorist attacks cannot dissuade millions of people from using it.
My first ride on an okada was during the census. It was late in the evening and I was returning to my hotel from a bar. Benjamin waved down the man, and before I could mutter “is this wise?” I was on and away.
Days later another colleague had a horrific accident on an okada. When I saw his scarred face I vowed not to travel on one again.
Of course I did. The next journey was a short hop from Wuse II to Maitama, it was early evening on a Friday, there was virtually no traffic around.
Those ten minutes were the closest I have ever come to flying. The Jincheng carved out arcing turns, unimpeded by the pedantic machinations of traffic lights, stop signs or other cars. As we flicked into Shehu Shagari Way and felt the bike pick up speed on the down slope, I had to resist the temptation to stretch out my arms and become a dog-fighting, World War One fighter ace, zooming into the inky clouds on a sortie.
A friend at the British High Commission says the first thing he does when he gets back from a trip home is jump on an okada and go to Mama Cass.
“Once you get on the bike, stop at a traffic light, get some odd looks and feel the heat pumping up from the tarmac, you really know you’re back,” he said.
That’s all over now.
Last Saturday I took my last okada in the capital. He shot down Herbert Macaulay, whizzing over the stinking creek at the heart of Abuja. I looked out east and saw the sun setting into the layers of smoky haze hanging over the city. The evening glow in Nigeria is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and as the sun set on Abuja -and the okada- I knew the best way to experience it is on the back of a motorbike with the wind rushing through my hair.
Of course it’s insanely dangerous. I’m amazed by the risks people take to get around. As a tribute to the versatility of this form of transport, here is a list of some of the things I’ve seen on the back of an okada: A man holding a three foot high sheet of glass, upright, that would have cut him in half if it broke; a whole family, with the baby perched on the petrol tank holding daddy’s handlebars; two nuns, riding side-saddle; a man holding nine huge plastic jerry-cans; seven crates of beer bottles (full); a mechanic holding two truck tyres, one on each knee; 12 to 15 live chickens, strung over the handlebars and pillion seat, craning their necks to eye the drivers around them; four bags of cement; people carrying 25-ft lengths of steel rebar, aluminium tubes, or ladders; over six months I’ve seen tons of firewood, yams, whole plantain trees and sacks of onions on the backs of bikes; a mattress -on the passenger’s head; a whole suburb fleeing the bulldozers; and a woman with a skirt so short she was a danger to traffic.
The drivers too take amazing risks, not only with how close they get to other vehicles capable of squashing them and their little machines. Why would people take these risks? Unlike in London, they have few other choices. Okadas are a symptom of the economic hardship Nigerians face, and perhaps everyone would like to see a Nigeria that didn’t need them.
I woke up on Sunday to a city suddenly without the chaotic crowd of okadas, without seeing them sleeping under bridges, washing their bikes in puddles, weaving in front of lorries and shouting “I FIRE YOU!” at drivers who cut them up, and yet I have a nagging feeling this is not the end of it.