The Chief of Air Staff, CAS, Sadique Abubakar, has disclosed that the Agusta AW 101 helicopter handed over to the Nigerian Air Force, NAF, by President Muhammadu Buhari, was used to convey the 21 Chibok girls released by Boko Haram from Maiduguri to Abuja, adding that it was not true that the air craft crash landed in Makurdi, Benue State.
Speaking with some online journalists in Abuja on Saturday, he explained that the aircraft landed successfully in Makurdi, but only had problem while taxiing to park.
He also debunked speculations in some quarters that the pilots who flew the helicopter caused the incident, stating that they were the ones who had been operating the aircraft while it was still in the Presidential Air Fleet, adding that the pilots were the ones that used it to successfully fly the released Chibok girls at night.
According to him, “What happened in Makurdi was not a crash. Immediately we received the aircraft, we took one of them to Kaduna to paint it into desert camouflage. They removed the seal of the President and painted it into a combat machine. When they finished the painting, they were supposed to go to Maiduguri but they needed to go to Makurdi to pick certain things before proceeding to Maiduguri. So the aircraft took off from Kaduna, landed perfectly in Makurdi, they were just taxiing to go and park when the incident happened. I don’t want to preempt whatever investigation that is going on.
“Those same pilots were the ones that picked the 21 Chibok girls that were moved out in the night and brought them back to Maiduguri and from Maiduguri to Abuja. So accidents happen and we are investigating to find out why it happened and we will make it public when we get the picture of what really happened.”
While extolling President Buhari for surrendering the aircraft to NAF, Abubakar stated that there are few persons who can give up such comfort, adding that the President realised that the air force had need for it.
His words, “The Augusta 101 was given to the air force from the presidential air fleet. It is a wonderful aircraft and for the president to surrender and give out his comfort for us to go and remove those comfortable chairs and convert the aircraft to troop carrier, there are very few people that can surrender that kind of comfort so that our troops can use the aircraft.
“He has realized that we needed the aircraft to be able to move. If you look at the size of the Northeast, it is quite huge. We were very happy when the president said take these two aircraft and convert it. We have people who have been flying the aircraft because the Presidential Air Fleet, PAF, is ran by the air force including the president’s aircraft. So it is not as if people were not trained; people were trained and right now. We invited the manufacturer of the aircraft to see how we can convert it from a presidential aircraft to troop carriers and ambulance.
“In fact, one of the airplanes were used to recover the 21 Chibok girls. One of the air crafts is what we used to fly them from where they were released in Maiduguri and subsequently to Abuja. And it was in the night that our pilots flew them. So what I am saying is that accidents will always happen no matter what you do.”
The Air Chief went on to reply those who criticise the Nigerian Air Force for still retaining old aircrafts, explaining that such persons are ignorant of what the Service passes through before it can acquire new aircraft or the equipment. This was as he disclosed that the procurement of aircraft equipment is shrouded in a lot of politics.
According to him, “Sometimes I see online comments ‘why is Nigeria operating these old aircraft, I just laugh’. I say the man is ignorant because he doesn’t know. Even if you have your money to buy an aircraft, you might not see one, not even an aircraft, spare parts and that is why we are forced to go into R and D (research and development).
“To get just quotation: please tell me how much is this aircraft, it might take you four months to get response depending on the type of relationship you have with the country or wherever you are buying these things. So it is not an easy thing. People will say why are you not buying F16, why are you not buying these aircraft.
“Even if you have the money, the manufacturer may decide not to sell to you, we have human rights issues for instance; they can use whatever excuse not to sell to you and you go back with your money and that is why we said look, we know what we want, we know what we have. we know the gap between what we want and what we have.
“So what we need to do now is to put up a strategy that will help us to make the best of what is available. We have an air force plane that can be used for training and fighting. But all the while we have been using it for training, we know this aircraft can actually carry objects, it’s there in the manual; we know it but we have not been using it because there was no need for it.
“But when we have challenges here and there , we put back the weapon system and activate it and we train our guys to fire with that aircraft.”
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