Insurgency: NAF Acquires 22 Aircraft – Air chief

The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar on
Wednesday said the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) recently acquired 22
new aircraft to support various ongoing military operations across
the country.

Abubakar made this disclosure while declaring open the NAF
Finance Training Workshop with the theme: “Strengthening the NAF
Finance Specialty for Efficient Service Delivery in Support of NAF
Operations,” at the NAF Headquarters, Abuja.

He said that as at July 2015, the aircraft serviceability status
of the Nigerian Air Force was below 60 per cent, but as at date,
the aircraft serviceability status has improved beyond 80 per
cent.

The Air Chief, who was represented by the Chief of Policy and
Plans, AVM Mohammad Mohammad, said the NAF was able to deploy its
platforms in support of military operations through prudent
management of resources.

He said that NAF was not only striving to improve on the present
status, but has complied with measures put in place by the present
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure transparency
and accountability in governance.

According to him, in line with the anti-corruption drive of Mr.
President, Commander-in-Chief, the NAF has complied with measures
put in place by the Federal Government to aid transparency in
government’s financial transactions.

“This measure include the Treasury Single Account, Government
Integrated Financial Management Information System, and the ongoing
biometric data capture for the Integrated Personnel and Payroll
Information System, just to mention a few.

” The recent feats achieved by the Service cost a lot of
money.

“For the Government to continue providing the necessary funds to
support Nigerian Air Force operations, it behooves on you to
continue to maintain high level of integrity as finance personnel
in the management of these public funds.

“It spite of a decline in governmental allocation, the Nigerian
Air Force alongside sister services have been able to achieve
commendable successes in counterinsurgency and the fight against
armed banditry plaguing various regions of the country.

“The Nigerian Air Force has been able to effectively deploy its
platforms to these areas in support of sister services.

“This much was achieved through prudent management of resources
allocated to the Service and strict compliance with procurement
laws,” Abubakar said.

He said the occasion is in line with two key drivers of his
vision, which emphasised on human capacity building through robust
and result oriented training and prudent management of
resources.

Abubakar said the workshop is timely and very important to the
service as a fighting force: “considering that the last workshop
for all finance personnel was held in the year 2007.”

According to him, the overall attitude of the Nigerian Air Force
today is in tandem with the theme for this workshop.

The air chief enjoined all participants to listen attentively to
the array of esteemed lecturers and discuss freely so that the
service can derive the maximum benefit from this workshop.

In his remark, the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr
Ahmed Idris, said modern military requires specialists in all
respects to successfully drive its core and other support
mandates.

Idirs, represented by Mr Mohammed Kudu, a Director of Funds in
the AGF Office, said “one way of overcoming the challenge of
inadequate financing is the effective and efficient management of
lean resources by competent and professional personnel in the face
of competing demands.

” In that respect, the NAF would need to command the best in her
officers through capacity building and thorough skill acquisition
and exposure to the latest financial management programmes.

“NAF should also guarantee compliance with extant rules and
regulations to foster accountability and probity in its
operations.

“It should never be compromised in order to ensure a functional
and highly efficient system,” he said.