By Lola Seriki- Idahosa, Kaduna
Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadiq B. Abubakar on Wednesday charged officers and men of Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna to develop more sophisticated equipment for use in fighting and bringing to an end Boko Haram insurgency in the north eastern part of the country.
Air Marshal Abubakar who is also the Chairman, governing council of AFIT spoke with Journalists in an interview shortly after the 44th convocation ceremony of graduating 400 students from the institute. The Air Force chief said for the institute to achieve the feat, it must conduct research and development, taking into serious consideration security challenges in the North East.
He said, “I think the institution is properly positioned to address some of the challenges the country is facing and that I am sure that it will impact positively (on) our effectiveness in dealing with the insurgents
“AFIT has a mandate for conducting research, it has been doing well in terms of research and development and we have charged them to do more taking into cognizance the challenges we have in the North East, so we are going to see what they have come up with, they have developed and (updated) the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles known as Gulma some years ago and I am sure, we will be able to see the Gulma, updated flying again.
“All these efforts are geared towards addressing the problems that we have in the North East, ..the institute is also training our technical support personnel which will be required to support the airplanes that are flying not only in the north east,but in other places like training institutes”.
Earlier, in his address, the Comandant of AFIT, Air Commodore Misbau A. Soladoye expressed satisfaction with the students’ academic performance, urging them to be Ambassadors of the institute whenever they might find themselves.
Also, in his speech, the guest of honour,Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai called on the management of the institute to always run to him for assistance that could uplift the standard of the institute from now till the end of his first 4-year tenure in office.
In his own address, the Provost of the institute, Professor Emmanuel Ezugwu disclosed that AFIT was investing hugely both in human capacity and financial resources to meet aspirations regarding aircraft development.
“AFIT in contributing to the national security thematic area, has embarked on a number of research and development projects aimed at aiding security agencies to efficiently enforce the rule of law.
“Some of these research efforts led to the successful completion of the design, manufacture and test flying of different versions of the unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), nicknamed the AMEBO ,for aerial surveillance as well as the design of AFIT light surveillanceTrainer (ASTL) aircraft.
“These projects include the design and manufacture of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detection and disposal unit known as the Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), versions 1&2 as well as the (aforementioned) AMEBO UAV project”the Provost said.
