President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved an onsite visit to Spain by the critical staff of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to inspect some of the facilities, engage technology solution providers to address security challenges as well as upgrade the agency’s surveillance systems.
NAMA has also embarked on the upgrade of its surveillance infrastructure across the nation’s airports and other remote installations across the country.
This is coming a few weeks after the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in a recent letter to aircraft owners and operators disclosed that an unidentified aircraft was seen hovering over the presidential villa recently.
Ahmed Umar Farouk, the Managing Director of NAMA, who made this disclosure while receiving a delegation from the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) at the agency’s corporate headquarters in Abuja noted that the Nigerian Air Force remained a valuable ally to the agency with regards to the safety and security of the nation’s airspace.
He recalled that the collaboration between the two agencies over time had been critical to the sustenance of airspace safety and security in Nigeria. “NAMA handles civil operations, while the Air Force oversees security. Our close collaboration is vital for maintaining a safe and secure airspace,” the NAMA boss said.
In his remarks, Air Vice Marshal Abubakar Abdulkadir, the leader of the NAF delegation, stated that the Nigerian Air Force had recently enhanced its capabilities to secure the nation’s airspace with new platforms designed for national air defence and stationed with the Air Defense Group in Makurdi.
He stressed that the NAF had also completed its day training and was close to finishing night training, which would enable rapid response and interception of any intruders in the Nigerian airspace.
He also shared an update on the NAF’s enhanced capabilities to monitor and identify all aircraft entering and exiting the Nigerian airspace, adding that improved collaboration and partnership between NAMA and the NAF would sustain the current security and safety in the nation’s airspace.
Abdulkadir described NAMA and NAF as “twin children of the same mother”, saying that NAF’s responsibility for airspace security complements NAMA’s role in airspace management.
Joint training initiatives aimed at addressing the shortage of Air Traffic Controllers across the country were considered as the Nigerian Air Force training centre in Kaduna which recently got accredited by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) would see at least 20 NAMA staff being trained annually.
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