Update: The aircraft has since been fixed and the flight has departed for Benin.

Our ealier story below:

A former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Tony Anenih, a former Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, and scores of other passengers are currently stranded at the Abuja airport after one of the toilets in their Arik flight 583 to Benin failed to flush.

A passenger on the flight told Premium Times officials of the airline evacuated the passengers from the plane after the rear toilet wouldn’t flush even after technical staff of the airline were called in.

The flight was to take off at 1 p.m but boarding only commenced more than one hour later.

After passengers boarded and the plane was to take off, the captain announced that one of the toilets was blocked and needed to be fixed.

For 30 minutes the problem was not resolved, forcing the airline to evacuate passengers.

As at 3.30p.m, passengers were still loitering around while the airline staff made spirited effort to fix the toilet.