FG orders Air Force to patrol borders patrol

Chief-of-Air-Staff-Air-Marshall-Mohammed-Dikko-Umar

Federal Government has directed the Nigerian Air Force to begin aerial patrolling of the nation’s borders.

Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Mohammed Umar, said this at the opening of a two-day retreat for all commanders and directors of the Nigerian Air Force in Abuja on Wednesday.

Umar said the government gave a directive to ensure effective and efficient policing of the borders to check insecurity.



He said the decision was taken to involve the NAF in border patrol because it had a higher capacity to face the challenge.

Aerial patrolling of the borders is being performed now by the Air Patrol Division of the Nigerian Immigration Service.

Umar said efforts were being made by the NAF to acquire more aircraft to cope with the task.

He said, “Following government assessment of the operations of the air border patrol operations, it felt that the Air Force would be more capable to handle this.

“That was why the NAF was tasked to begin to prepare to commence air border patrol. For now, government has not transferred the assets of the air border patrol to the NAF.

“But we are gearing up within our own aircraft holding before the actual handing over of the assets and responsibilities for us to completely carry out this duty all over the country.

“We are ready to carry out any task the nation wants from us. All we require now is the directive. Once we get the directive, we will commence operations with whatever resources we have. And of course, we will be informing the government from time to time is what we will require to even do the job better.

“Because of the prevailing security situation, Air Force is used all over the country and also outside.

“This is because Nigeria has a lot of responsibilities in Darfur (Sudan), Guinea Bissau and very soon in Mali. We are gearing up to get more aircraft serviceable to confront these challenges.”

Umar said the responsibility of patrolling the borders and carrying out internal security operations require painstaking and elaborate planning.

According to him, the NAF decided to organise the training “to have a feedback system for assessing and reassessing performance indicators”.

He said the NAF personnel would put in their best and ensure that nothing was left to chance to ensure improved performance of the responsibilities.

Chief of Training and Operations, Air Vice Marshal Ishaq Umar, said the training was to correct errors made by the commanders and directors of the service while performing their operational responsibilities.

He listed the errors to include failure to exercise “disciplinary powers, not knowing what to do in the event of an accident, poor crew selection, ignorance of procedure, flagrant disrespect for the authorities or neglect/inappropriate response to the Nigerian Air Force headquarters directives and improper logistics managerial function.”