Nigeria Force ready to demystify insurgency ― Air Force chief

The Chief of Air Staff, Air Mashal Sadique Abubakar, has said that with the re-activation of three L-39ZA aircraft which includes NAF352, NAF354 and NAF364, the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) is well equipped to further combat insurgency and banditry

Making the assertion on Friday in Kano, the NAF boss, during the handover ceremony of the reactivated L-39ZA aircraft by Czech-based company, Aero Vodochody Aerospace, at the 403 NAF Training School, Kano, said additional six of such aircraft would also be re-activated before the end of 2019.

His words; “the re-activation of these aircraft means saving money and building capacity because all the guys, our engineers and technicians participated right from the beginning.

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It is like sending a signal to Nigerians that the President and Commander-In-Chief, Muhammadu Buhari is highly committed to ensuring that all that is required for us to be able to address some of the fundamental issues of internal security facing Nigeria are being addressed.

“That is why I think that it is not just a message to the school, but a message to Nigerians and I think the Federal Government is committed.

He, however, noted that the impact the re-activation of these aircraft is going to make should go beyond even training the officers here.

He further stated that the Airforce has brought in three grounded fighter aircraft that are now out, ready to be used, saying “We need to train pilots to be able to have combat pilots that will go out to address these challenges.

“It is here in Kano that we do the basic training and we cannot achieve that if we don’t have a sufficient number of aircraft.

“So, this is a giant stride, in my opinion, the Federal Government has made to ensure that we continue the training of pilot. Remember also that some of these aircraft that you see here, we have utilised them in the North-East and that is why one of them that you see over there is painted in desert camouflage.

“I think it will impact positively on the air force to ensure that fighting training is going on without hindrance.

“They already have 15 pilots that are here. They will commence training immediately with these aircraft that have been re-activated, in addition to the ones that are already here.”

He further noted “the re-activation of these aircraft means saving money and building capacity because all the guys, our engineers and technicians participated right from the beginning.

“They put the aircraft together with our technical partners from the Czech Republic and they have been very professional because these are aircraft manufactured in the Czech Republic.

“These are the original equipment manufacturers; they are not just business people. They are the people that manufactured the aircraft and supplied it to Nigeria in the 80s.

“Instead of carrying the aircraft outside Nigeria and doing the maintenance in Czech, which is an option, first it will cost us a lot of money for even taking these aircraft into cargo aircraft to fly to Czech and that will also mean that we will not have the opportunity to train our technicians.”

Ambassador of the Czech Republic in Nigeria, Marek Skolil, traced the bilateral relationship between Czech and Nigeria in 1961, pointing out that the country has always remain ally top Nigeria even during the civil war.

Military-technical cooperation of Czech with Nigeria certainly did not stop at that. As from 2014, my country supported the Nigerian Army as well as the Nigeria Air Force with equipment, materials, training and technical assistance to combat the insurgency in the North-East of the country.”

According to him: “For 33 years of service here in Nigeria, this aircraft has proved to be rugged, reliable and pilot-friendly platform, used for the training of several generations of Nigeria Air Force pilots.

Earlier, the Commander of 403 NAF Flying Training School, Mr Nnamdi Ananaba, however, disclosed that the engineers and technicians of the Aero Vodochody company spent four months in the school re-activating the three aircraft.