The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has charged officers and airmen of the Nigerian Air Force to intensify their efforts in the fight against banditry, kidnapping and insurgency in the North-East.
This is coming on the heels of an operation in Walawa, Yadi and Kuduru hills in Kaduna State, where bandits were flushed out from their hideouts by NAF fighter jets.
Scores of bandits were killed and their logistics destroyed during the operation.
Abubakar said for the NAF to be highly professional, it had to focus more on the development of capacity armament, aircraft maintenance and result-oriented training to tackle security challenges.
The CAS also urged personnel to carefully plan their strategy to face the insurgents.
The Air Chief stated these at the ongoing Air Engineering Conference 2020 held at the Nigerian Air Force Institute of Technology, Kaduna.
The two-day conference had the theme, “Building Capacity for Self-Reliance in Aircraft/Armament Engineering for Enhanced Air Power Delivery in the NAF.”
While speaking at the closing ceremony of the conference on Friday, Abubakar said with the assistance from the Federal Government, much was needed from the force in the ongoing fight against insurgency and other security challenges.
He, therefore, charged personnel to redouble their efforts in executing the war against banditry, kidnapping as well as insurgency in the North-East.
He said, “As the government continues to provide the necessary support to sustain the tempo of operations against insurgency and terrorism, so must our efforts be sustained to justify the confidence reposed in us by ensuring that resources committed to aircraft acquisition are not whittled away through poor maintenance, especially at this point in time that we need all efforts towards defending the territorial integrity of the nation.
“It is only when we get the strategy right that we can hope to effectively and efficiently deploy air power necessary to address challenges facing the country.”
Earlier, the Chief of Aircraft Engineering, Air Marshal Misbau Olatunji, had said the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari had put in significant efforts towards building self-reliance in aircraft/armament maintenance in the NAF.
“It is in furtherance of this laudable effort that this conference is being held to examine the achievements made so far and fashion out ways to propel the NAF to a greater height of self-reliance in Aircraft/Armament Engineering for enhanced air power delivery,” he said.