The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has acquired 30 aircraft and activated 13 grounded ones in the last three years, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Sadiq Abubakar has stated.
Abubakar spoke yesterday at the inauguration of the new Headquarters of Air Training Command and the Sports complex at the Air Force Comprehensive School in Kaduna.
According to him: โIn the last three years, we were able to acquire 18 aircraft, similarly the Federal Government has paid for additional 12 aircraft if put together is 30.
โProfessionalism is also ensuring that we activate what currently we have; hence we embarked on renovation of our grounded aircraft.
โSo far, we have activated 13 aircraft and working on the 14 to15 ones both in Port Harcourt in Rivers State.โ
According to him, professionalism is having the right structure, hence the decision to unbundle the former Training Command to Air Training Command and Ground Training Command.
He disclosed the NAF increased its manpower from 1,000 a year to 1,500 minimum annually.
โWe also recognised the need to have required numbers of officers in addition to the one coming from Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) and that is why we enlisted 400 Direct Short Service Commission Officers,โโ he said.
