Rights Group Urges Comfort Bob to Sue Ibom Air Over Alleged Rights Violation

By Diafa Doubra,

The advocacy group De-Advocates for Justice has called on Comfort Bob, the passenger whose video and nude photographs went viral on social media yesterday, to take legal action against Ibom Air for allegedly violating her fundamental human rights and dignity.

In a statement issued in Warri, the group’s president, Comrade Israel Joe, condemned the airline’s handling of the incident, describing it as morally wrong and legally unacceptable. He argued that Ibom Air’s actions were excessive, likening them to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer.

Charging her to court, remanding her in prison, and imposing a lifetime flight ban is nothing short of oppression,Joe said. He questioned the proportionality of the airline’s response, asking, What is the actual penalty for fighting or breaking in flight rules? What happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty?

The group strongly criticized the manner in which Comfort Bob was apprehended, accusing the airline of using male security officers to drag her, tear her clothes, and film her in a half-naked state footage that later surfaced online. According to Joe, such treatment breached Section 34(1a) of the Nigerian Constitution, which guarantees the dignity of the human person.

They could have waited until the flight landed and then sent female officers to arrest her, he said. There are trained personnel who can restrain a passenger without humiliating them.

The group insisted that no matter the circumstances, Ibom Air had no justification for what it described as degrading and denigrating treatment of a customer. If we truly live in a country governed by laws, this matter would have been handled with more maturity, Joe added, noting that features like flight mode exist precisely to address onboard phone usage without requiring total device shutdown.