Local firm produces spare parts for NAF fighter Pharmacist

Elated Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has commended the management of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM) for locally producing spare parts for the Alpha Jets used by the Nigeria Air Force to sustain the counter-insurgency operations in the North east.

Abubakar told the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Innocent Chukwuma, who paid him a courtesy call in his office that the contribution of the company to NAF, when brake assembly was lacking in their fleet, is deserving of a national honour. According to him, the NAF would have been compelled to ground its entire fleet of Alpha-Jets if IVM had not “helped to locally modify and overhaul the brake assembly of the MB-339 aircraft for adoption on the Alpha Jets.”

A statement issued yesterday by the NAF Director of Public Relations and Information (DoPRI), Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, said: “This ingenious effort by IVM is instrumental to the continued operation of the Alpha Jets, and had helped to save the day when help was not forthcoming from abroad. The contribution by IVM deserves national recognition and award, given the important role played by the Alpha Jet in the ongoing counter insurgency operations in North East Nigeria.

“Our partnership with IVM would not end with the Alpha jet break assembly but a leeway to forge new frontiers, through research and development, to replicate some of the spares needed by our platforms.” Air Marshal Abubakar noted that the collaboration has saved Nigeria huge sums of money in foreign currency, which would have been used to procure the parts abroad.

The statement noted that this collaboration is one of the key drivers of the vision of “strategic partnership with ministries, departments and agencies for enhanced research and development” the Air Force boss nurtured on taking over the reins of the affairs of the military institution.

To this end, NAF is poised to exploit the possibilities of mass-producing the Alpha Jet break assembly and other parts locally by partnering with IVM, as well as other credible organisations, to build own capacity for enhanced self-reliance.

According to the statement, Chukwuma expressed the readiness of his company to partner with NAF in the manufacturing of locally made spare parts needed to keep the aircraft operational as well as automobiles parts.