The Nigerian Air Force has announced massive redeployments of its personnel across the country in a bid to strengthen internal security.
The deployment is coming a few days after the Nigerian Army embarked on the same exercise.
In the last few weeks, men of the air force and other arms of the military and police have come under severe attack by bandits and terrorists resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.
The most recent was the attack on officers of the Brigade of Guards in Bwari, Abuja which led to the death of two army captains and three other ranks.
On Wednesday, an assistant inspector-general of police in charge of Zone 12, Bauchi, was attacked and injured while his orderly was killed by men suspected to be terrorists.
In a statement released on Thursday in Abuja by Edward Gabkwet, an air commodore and director of public relations and information, Nigerian Air Force, Oladayo Amao, an air marshal and chief of the air staff (CAS), approved the immediate appointment and redeployment of new branch chiefs, air officers commanding (AOCs) and other senior officers.
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Among the newly appointed branch chiefs are air vice marshal (AVM) Jackson Yusuf, formerly chief of training and operations (CTOP) who is now the chief of policy and plans (COPP), NAF headquarters, Abuja; AVM Oluwafemi Ogunmola, former director of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, now chief of communications information systems (CCIS), HQ NAF; AVM Aliyu Bello, former chief of standards and evaluation (COSE) is now redeployed as the CTOP, HQ NAF, Abuja while AVM Nkem Aguiyi takes over as the chief of air intelligence (CAI) and AVM Hassan Abubakar, former AOC logistics command is now the chief of standards and evaluation.
In the same vein, the erstwhile COPP, AVM Charles Ohwo is now the chief of defence transformation and innovation, defence headquarters (DHQ), Abuja; AVM Abubakar Liman, former CAI is now the director of space utilisation, DHQ; AVM Hycinth Eze, former group managing director (GMD) NAF Holding Company takes over as director of production, DHQ; AVM Musa Muktar takes over as the GMD NAF Holding Company while AVM Raimi Salami, the erstwhile CCIS is now the director of strategy, DHQ.
The newly appointed AOCs are AVM Precious Amadi, AOC tactical air command (TAC), Makurdi; AVM Abubakar Abdulkadir, AOC special operations command (SOC), Bauchi; AVM Nnamdi Ananaba, AOC air training command (ATC), Kaduna while AVM Emmanuel Shobande takes over as AOC logistics command (LC), Lagos.
In his message to the new appointees, Amao reminded them of the need to continually seek effective and efficient means of deploying the resources at their disposal in line with the reviewed NAF counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategy.
He also charged them to be proactive and synergise with sister services towards eliminating the threats particularly posed by terrorists in the country.
The newly appointed and redeployed senior officers are expected to assume their new offices on or before Friday, 5 August 2022.
