By Nicholas Dechi
The Chief of Standards and Evaluation, Nigerian Air Force (NAF), AVM Bala Abubakar, said the service was looking inwards through Research and Development (R and D) to meet its technical challenges.
Abubakar said this during the 2023 Intra-Command Research and Development Competition and Exhibition organised by NAF Tactical Air Command (TAC) Makurdi, on Thursday.
Represented by Director of Evaluation, AVM Tajudeen Yusuf, Abubakar said that acquisition of technology from advanced countries was becoming increasingly challenging and expensive.
“This in turn puts a serious burden on our capabilities to meet our constitutional roles.
“As such, there is need to look inwards and explore the resources in the country through research and development to address our deficiency in technology,” Abubakar said.
He said that NAF had addressed major complexities through painstaking research and development.
This, he said, was in line with the vision of the Chief of the Air Staff to provide sustainable platforms and ensure equipment serviceability through innovative maintenance and logistics support systems.
The NAF chief said the efforts had led to development of essential aircraft parts and two remotely piloted aircraft, ‘Gulma’ in 2013 and “Tsegumi” in 2018.
“The NAF through collaborative efforts produced brake pads, anti-skid test bench for the Alpha jet aircraft and heat shields protective cones, among others,” he added.
Also, the Air Officer Commanding (AOC), TAC, AVM Precious Amadi, said that the prevailing insecurity across the country had made it imperative for security agencies to step up response strategies to tackle criminality.
Amadi reiterated that the Armed Forces, including NAF had adopted proactive measures aimed at effective application of airpower in Counter-Insurgency Operations.
“These measures to a large extent depend on the growth of home-based technology for long term effectiveness.
“This endeavor can only be actualized through research and development programmes,” Amadi, represented by AVM Paul Efanga, said.
He said that the competition was to showcase innovative ideas in solving array of operational, maintenance and other service challenges.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that at the end of the R and D competition, 141 Communications Group came first, followed by 109 Air Defence Group and 153 Strike Group. (NAN)
