Sosoliso Airlines founder Victor Ikwuemesi becomes the latest Nigerian to succumb to Covid-19 in the UK

NIGERIA'S diaspora community in the UK has just suffered another major loss after Victor Ikwuemesi the founder and chief executive of Sosoliso Airlines became the latest victim of the coronavirus pandemic.

An accountant by profession, Mr Ikwuemesi established Sosoliso Airlines in 1994 and started operations in July 2000. However, on April 30 2017, the airline, which had six planes, ceased operations after it failed to meet Nigerian government guidelines requiring all aviation operators to recapitalise.

Mr Ikwuemesi went into hospital in London on Saturday April 11 and while there tested positive for Covid-19. He was admitted into an intensive care unit and placed on oxygen but when the oxygen was removed for him to eat he could not breath on his own.

Subsequently, the nurses put him on a ventilator and he died shortly after this morning. Mr Ikwuemesi, who is an alumnus of Federal Government College Okigwe, was originally based in Lagos from where Sosoliso Airlines operated flights to Enugu, Port Harcourt, Owerri and Abuja.