Insurgency and harsh economy brings out the best in NAF
The harsh economic times and insurgency in the
northeast is bringing out the best in Nigeria and the
armed forces. At least, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF)
has been able to do the unthinkable by fabricating
hydraulic diaphragms that can be used in the two
different types of helicopter gunships in its fleet,
something that was previously thought to be
impossible.
At a meeting with journalists in Abuja recently, the
Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Siddique Abubakar,
explained how with N5 million, the NAF, working
Nigerian experts from tertiary institutions, was able
to resolve a technical bottleneck with one of its
aircraft.
The manufacturers had asked for N25 million to
“assess the problem,” with actual repairs reached
the billion naira mark.Buoyed by some of the feats
achieved in tandem with 16 Nigerian universities
and polytechnics, the NAF is putting together a
Research and Development (R&D) competition
among all its commands next month.
On the recently released video by Boko Haram, the
air chief described it as “cheap propaganda,” as
those allegedly shown as those killed in NAF
bombings could not have been hit by their bombs.
The air force chief went on: “Even the IEDs that
they developed, have you ever seen a
complete body together after it has been detonated
at any location? That is the crudest form of bomb,
but when you go there after an explosion, you don’t
see anything, not to talk of a 25KG bomb.
“If you look at the clip, they positioned the girls
there. Somebody even told me that he saw one of
the girls even moving her head.”“All I can tell you
is that just looking at the way they did it, you can
clearly see that it couldn’t have been something that
happened after an air strike.
“If you drop a bomb, there will be a crater.
Where is the crater? If you drop a bomb, within
certain meters radius of the point of impact,
everybody there will be gone. In most cases, they
will be shredded, depending on the type of bomb,
where it is dropped and the kind of configuration
you used in doing the bombing. “But if you now
neatly arrange people and say these people were
killed by air strike, it doesn’t make sense at all.
“So, these guys are jus trying to whip up sentiments
because they know that every Nigerian is concerned
about those girls. I have daughters and sometimes
when I look at my daughters, I remember those
girls.
“There is no day that the sun rises and sets that we
don’t go out hoping to see these girls. From January
this year to August 17, we flew about 2,600
hours and about 50 per cent of our mission was on
ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance).”
Prodded further concerning arguments that the
girls may be collateral damage from the bombings,
the air chief admitted that there is no military
operation without collateral damage.
He stressed: “We are trying within available
resources to try and understand the terrain called
Sambisa Forest and we are able to determine what
is keg intimate target to be attacked. We don’t just
go out to attack civilians, as counter- insurgency is
about wining hearts and mind.“So, the girls have
nothing to do with air strike. After an air strike, you
will not see things like that the way they displayed
them in their video. Maybe because they are used to
fighting on land, they don’t know about air battle.
So, they think that they can drop anything and it
will make sense. It doesn’t work that way.”
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