Shake-up in air force, 58 senior officers redeployed

The Nigerian air force has redeployed 58 high-ranking officers and established two new training commands in Enugu and Kaduna.

The establishment of the two new commands brings to six the total numbers of commands under the air force.

The shake-up in the air force was announced in a statement released on Tuesday.

It read: “As part of restructuring efforts by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) to enhance the effective and efficient projection of air power, 2 new Commands and a Branch have been established.

“The 2 new Commands established are the Air Training Command (ATC) with Headquarters in Kaduna and Ground Training Command (GTC) with Headquarters in Enugu. These new commands were excised from the now defunct Training Command (TC) thereby bringing the total number of Commands in the NAF to 6. The ATC will be responsible for the implementation of policies on flying and air operations while the GTC will be responsible for the implementation of local ground training.

“The newly established Branch is known as Communications Branch. The Branch was unbundled from the former Logistics and Communications Branch which brings the number of NAF branches to 10. The new Branch would handle all the needs of the NAF, with regards to communications, electronics, radar maintenance, Information and Space Technology.

“Sequel to this development, the NAF has redeployed a total of 58 officers comprising 25 Air Vice Marshals (AVM), 20 Air Commodores, 5 Group Captains, one Wing Commander, 4 Squadron Leaders, 2 Flight Lieutenants and one Flying Officer. Among those posted to Defence Headquarters are AVMs Wakili Ahmed, Defence Policy and Plans; Ibrahim Umaru, Director Safety and Manual; Benjamin Nweze, Director, Civil-Military Relations; Eche Agwungwu, Director Space; Bernard Chiobi, Director of Operations and Onyemaechi Osahor, Director General Defence Research Production Bureau.

“Senior Officers posted within HQ NAF include AVMs Nurudeen Balogun who is now Chief of Training and Operations; Muhammadu Muhammed, Chief of Policy and Plans; Charles Otegbade, Director of Plans; Olusoji Awomodu, Director of Museum and Archives; Sani Ahmed, Director of Policy; Muhammad Abdul-Wahab, Air Secretary; Kingsley Lar, Chief of Standards and Evaluation; Napoleon Bali, Director of Training; Christian Dii, Managing Director Aircraft Engineering and Technical Services Limited; Abdulganiyu Olabisi, Chief of Aircraft Engineering; Charles Oghomwen, Chief of Communications, Cletus Udeagulu, Director Research and Development and Paul Dimfwina, Director of Evaluation. Similarly, the newly appointed Air Officers Commanding are AVMs Samson Akpasa, Ground Training Command, Enugu; Saddiq Kaita, Special Operations Command, Bauchi; and Mohammed Idris, Tactical Air Command, Makurdi.”