A Nigerian Air Force plane went down in Ondo State on Monday with 32 people on board, and all of them are reported dead. The military investigates its own air crashes unless it invites Nigeria's safety investigation bureau in. Elsewhere, two surveys from the same central bank describe the same month differently. Kebbi pilgrims face a deposit deadline as explosions are heard in Riyadh, and a Nigerian film heads for the Oscars.

Six Stories.

1. A Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 crashed at Igbokoda in Ondo State on Monday with 25 passengers and seven crew, and all 32 on board are reported dead.
2. Nigeria's safety investigation bureau says it investigates a military crash only if the military invites it, and President Tinubu has ordered the Air Force to investigate.
3. The CBN's September business survey shows a fourth month of expansion, while its household survey shows consumer sentiment falling to minus 18.7.
4. Kebbi pilgrims have until 1 December to pay for 2027 Hajj visas, and the Houthis claimed they targeted Riyadh's airport on Monday.
5. Mira Mehta spent years raising tomato yields in Kaduna before she built the factory that turns them into paste.
6. Nigeria has chosen Dear Ajayi as its Oscar submission, and the film opens in cinemas nationwide on 13 November.

Here's what it means.

1. 32 ON A ROUTINE FLIGHT

A Nigerian Air Force ATR-42 went down at Igbokoda on Monday, and all 32 on board are reported dead. The Air Force will release the names once families have been told.

At 9:13 a.m. on Monday, air traffic controllers lost contact with a Nigerian Air Force plane flying from Benin City to Lagos. Aviation Minister Festus Keyamo gave the tail number as NGR 931. Repeated attempts to raise the plane on radio failed, he said. He said preliminary information showed 25 passengers and seven crew on board.

The wreckage lay close to the naval base at Igbokoda, headquarters of Ilaje Local Government Area in Ondo State. The Air Force confirmed the plane was its own, called the flight a routine mission and said a search and rescue operation had begun. Its statement did not confirm any deaths or survivors.

Oluboyo Olusola lives in Igbokoda. He did not see the plane come down. He told TheCable, "We heard a loud noise like thunder and rushed to the scene." He said the ground was waterlogged and hard to cross, and that naval personnel helped people reach the wreckage. From what he saw, he said, nobody appeared to have survived. TheCable carried his account.

Oba Afolabi Odidiomo, the Olu of Igbokoda, was in court when the plane came down. He sent palace aides to find out what had happened. He told the same outlet he first feared a commercial airliner with far more people on board. He said the plane fell into a river and swamp outside the town, in the rain, and did not catch fire.

Dayo Akinte, 39, hawks firewood and lives about a kilometre from the site. She told AFP she heard a sound she took for thunder.

Ondo Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa described the first minutes on Channels Television. He said Navy personnel held back briefly in case of an explosion, then moved in when they saw no flames. Amotekun officers and the local emergency agency followed. Some people saw the aircraft nose-dive into the swamp, he said. He said, "From all indications, there are no survivors yet that we can record." Channels carried the interview.

Rescuers recovered ID cards and uniforms, the governor said, and that was how they knew it was a military aircraft. Defence Minister Christopher Musa's statement on Monday also extended condolences to the families of civilians on board. The presidency's statement speaks of Air Force personnel, and Premium Times reports that the presidency indicated the dead were mostly military.

President Tinubu declared three days of national mourning and ordered flags to half-mast. In a statement by his spokesman Bayo Onanuga, the presidency said Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke had briefed him. It also said the Air Force will release the officers' names after contacting their families. The statement refers to personnel who died but gives no count.

Premium Times reads that statement as indicating that all 32 on board died. The identities of those on board have not been released, and the cause of the crash has not been established.

Channels Television describes the ATR-42 as a workhorse for maritime patrol and surveillance flying. Thirty-two people took off on a mission the Air Force called routine. By Tuesday morning the public held a tail number, a route, a time and a headcount.

The Air Force has said the names will follow. It has not said what brought the plane down.

2. WHO INVESTIGATES THE AIR FORCE?

Nigeria's safety investigation bureau says it can look into the Ondo crash only if the military asks. The president has told the Air Force to do the investigating.

On Monday the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau published a statement about a crash it is not investigating. The plane that went down at Igbokoda was a military ATR-42. The bureau's director general, Captain Alex Badeh Jr, wrote that the investigation of military aviation accidents rests with the military.

He cited the NSIB Establishment Act, 2022, and international practice. The bureau investigates a military accident only when the military formally invites it, the statement says.

The bureau offered help anyway. Its Flight Safety Laboratory can recover and read flight data and cockpit voice recordings if the Air Force requests it. The bureau also said any further information from it would be released in consultation with the Air Force.

Meanwhile the orders have gone to the military side. President Tinubu said he had directed the Air Force to start a thorough investigation to prevent future occurrences. Defence Minister Christopher Musa said a comprehensive investigation had been ordered.

Nigeria has been here before. On 21 May 2021 an Air Force King Air 350 crashed near Kaduna airport and killed 11 people, including Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Ibrahim Attahiru. The Chief of Air Staff set up a joint investigation with Air Force safety officers and the Accident Investigation Bureau, the NSIB's predecessor. The crash fell outside the bureau's mandate.

The bureau's then chief executive, Akin Olateru, said it was the bureau's first direct involvement in a military air crash investigation in Nigeria. An interim report reached the Chief of Air Staff in September 2021, nearly four months after the crash. It carried 27 initial findings, and Channels Television reports eight immediate safety recommendations.

Channels Television's review of the last decade found that boards of inquiry are usually set up after Air Force crashes. It also found that full final reports are rarely released. How many of the 2021 recommendations were carried out is unclear in public sources.

The same review lists smaller cases. After a 2018 collision over Abuja killed Squadron Leader Bello Baba-Ari, the Chief of Air Staff ordered a probe, and Channels says the findings were never fully published. After a 2022 trainer crash in Kaduna killed two pilots, an accident investigation board was set up. Channels says public information confirms only the training context and the deaths.

In February 2021 a King Air 350 crashed near Abuja airport after reporting engine failure, and all seven on board died. The Air Force said an investigation was under way. Al Jazeera carried that statement. Channels says the engine problem appeared in the initial report but was not a full causal finding.

In July 2025 the Air Force said it had gone a full year without a mishap. Channels notes that this was an official claim and was not independently audited in the source it reviewed.

All 32 on board are reported dead. The 2021 interim report was submitted nearly four months after the crash and went first to the Chief of Air Staff. The Air Force brought an outside investigator in then. The NSIB has now said publicly that it stands ready if asked.

As of Tuesday morning the Air Force has not said whether it will send that invitation. Who decides what the public reads when the report comes back is the other open question.

3. WHEN FIRMS GROW, HOUSEHOLDS HOLD OFF

The Central Bank of Nigeria's September surveys point in opposite directions. The business reading rose, and the household reading fell.

The CBN's composite Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 53.0 in September from 52.7 in August. That is a fourth straight month above 50, which the CBN counts as expansion. Twenty-three of 32 subsectors grew and nine shrank.

Two days later the CBN's Household Expectations Survey put overall consumer sentiment at minus 18.7, down from minus 9.9 in August. Buying intentions were negative for houses at minus 68.2, cars at minus 67.3 and investments at minus 50.7. The CBN said buying conditions stayed unfavourable at all three horizons it surveys.

The share of households calling inflation high rose to 77.2 per cent from 67.2 per cent. The National Bureau of Statistics put headline inflation at 15.39 per cent in August, down from 15.43 per cent in July.

The household survey's other readings were also negative. The economic conditions index stood at minus 21.5, family finances at minus 23.9 and family income at minus 10.5.

Inside the business survey, prices moved apart. The composite input price index rose 0.8 points while the output price index fell 0.5 points. One reading of the report says input prices rose faster than output prices in services and agriculture. A month earlier the picture ran the other way. In August the input index fell 0.2 points and the output index rose 1.0 point. The CBN said services and agriculture then had faster rises in output prices than in input costs.

The CBN's Business Expectations Survey put business confidence at 13.4, a slight fall from August. Firms named multiple taxation at 67.1, insecurity at 66.2 and high interest rates at 64.3 as their biggest constraints. Among firms with a positive outlook, 29.3 per cent credited increased demand.

The surveys ask different people different questions. The August PMI report said it covered 1,900 purchasing and supply executives, and the CBN noted that it reflects respondents' views and not the bank's own position. The household survey measures expectations and perceptions, not household spending itself.

Neither survey says how many of the surveyed households buy from the surveyed firms. Neither says whether the squeeze in the PMI's price indices reaches the shelf prices households report.

Households expect sentiment to turn positive at plus 7.1 in six months. Firms project confidence of 23.6 in December and 36.1 by March 2027. Both groups are forecasting a better position. Neither survey says which group gets there first.

4. THE HAJJ DEADLINE AND THE BLASTS IN RIYADH

Kebbi pilgrims have until 1 December to pay for 2027 Hajj visas. The Houthis claimed strikes on Riyadh's airport on Monday.

Faruk Aliyu Yaro Enabo chairs the Kebbi State Pilgrims Welfare Agency. On 28 June he told intending pilgrims they have until 1 December to complete the payments and documentation required for their Saudi visas for the 2027 Hajj. The first payment window closed on 30 July. Governor Nasir Idris approved an initial deposit of N5 million, and Enabo said those who could would pay the full fare of N7 million. Saudi authorities approved 50,000 Nigerian pilgrims for the 2026 Hajj, and Enabo said no deaths were recorded among Kebbi's 4,256 pilgrims.

On Monday the Houthis claimed they had targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and an Aramco refinery at Rabigh, the Associated Press reported. They said they used ballistic and cruise missiles and drones. Separately, AFP reporters and residents heard explosions in Riyadh late that night. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces launched an offensive that day under coalition air cover. The US embassy in Riyadh warned American citizens to be vigilant about possible drone and missile attacks.

Riyadh has had alerts before. On 19 September Saudi authorities sounded the first air raid alert in the capital since fighting with the Houthis resumed in July. A fuel tank near the airport burned, and flights were disrupted.

The Saudi-led coalition also said the Houthis attacked an electricity station in Madinah on 29 September. It said the station supplies the Prophet's Mosque, one transformer went out of service and the network was unaffected. The Houthis denied the accusation.

Two months earlier, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission and Al Yaro International held a Nigeria-Saudi investment and tourism summit in Abuja on 4 and 5 August. NiDCOM's secretary, Sule Bassi, said it was meant to strengthen collaboration between Nigerians living in Saudi Arabia and stakeholders in both countries. Organisers expected more than 5,000 visitors.

On 1 October the National Hajj Commission said Saudi Arabia had approved 10,000 more slots, raising Nigeria's 2027 quota from 50,000 to 60,000, Blueprint reported. Its report of the statement does not mention the fighting. The commission had set 26 September as the deadline for uploading pilgrims' data to Saudi Arabia's Nusuk-Masar platform, and another payment deadline falls in December.

The deposits and the deadlines are set. No state pilgrims board has been reported changing its dates.

5. THE FARM COMES FIRST

Mira Mehta spent years on tomato yields before she built a factory in Kaduna. Her company now targets more than a threefold rise in fresh tomato production by 2029.

Mira Mehta runs a tomato processing business in Kaduna, and she built the farm before the factory. An adviser named Chris told her not to dream about a factory, she says, until you can get the yields up. Without competitive yields, he warned, imports from China or efficient American producers would crush her.

She had moved to Nigeria in the late 2000s and noticed that nearly every can of paste sold under a Nigerian brand name was made and packed in China. In a glut, she says, the basket the farmers used was worth more than the tomatoes inside it. She decided to pursue the idea full time in 2014. That year she took it to Harvard Business School's New Venture Competition and won the Social Enterprise Track runner-up prize.

Prosper Africa helped her raise the factory's money, she said in 2022. Her first paste came off the line in March 2021, by her account. Nigeria was importing an average of 150,000 tonnes of tomato paste concentrate a year, worth about $170 million, according to a 2022 report.

At the port, she told BusinessDay, she paid about 5 per cent duty on Italian processing equipment that should have come in duty free. Imported retail-packed paste has been on Nigeria's prohibited list since a 2019 Finance Ministry circular, and it appears again on a schedule dated 1 April 2026. Daily Trust reported that the ban does not cover concentrate imported in drums for local brands to repack.

On the farm, she told Daily Trust that insecurity makes movement around the site difficult. She has also said she no longer runs a traditional out-grower system, because those farmers could not get enough water onto their plants at a workable cost. More than half of the company's raw materials now come from smallholders in Kaduna State.

At the end of September the company announced a US$2.5 million convertible note from EDFI Management Company, through the EU-funded AgriFI. The money is for packaging equipment, factory upgrades and drip irrigation. In May, Sabou Capital provided a $2 million naira-denominated facility.

The company expects annual fresh tomato output to rise from just over 4,500 tonnes to about 16,000 tonnes by 2029. It expects the smallholders it works with to rise from about 500 to 1,500. EDFI expects the note to help catalyse a US$6 million equity round in 2028.

Every person she consulted told her the hard part of the business was the farming, she has said. She is still holding the order she was given at the start. The farm comes first and the factory second.

6. EIGHT YEARS TO AN OSCAR SUBMISSION

Nigeria has chosen Dear Ajayi as its entry for the 99th Academy Awards. A submission is not a nomination, and the film opens nationwide on 13 November.

Damilola Orimogunje began developing Dear Ajayi around 2017, What Kept Me Up reports. The script went through development programmes including Ouaga Film Lab and the Berlinale's Strategic Audience Design Lab. The film was shot in Ibadan in 2025. It follows two sisters in 1990s southwestern Nigeria who are brought back under one roof to care for their paralysed mother.

On 4 October the Nigerian Official Selection Committee named it Nigeria's submission for Best International Feature. Premium Times reports that Nigeria did not submit a film for the 98th Academy Awards. Nigeria's first entry, Lionheart, was disqualified because most of its dialogue was in English.

In Venice in September the film became the first Nigerian film in the Giornate degli Autori competition. It won the Bisato d'Oro for Best Cast and Performances and the CICT-UNESCO Fellini Medal, BellaNaija reports. It opened in select Nigerian cinemas on 18 September.

Orimogunje told Culture Custodian he always wanted a proper theatrical life in Nigeria for the film. The nationwide release under FilmOne is on 13 November. The Academy announces its shortlists on 15 December.