Airforce, Innoson sign MOU to produce jet fighter parts

A major boost in the fight against insurgency in the north east was recorded yesterday as the Nigerian Air Force signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company, a local vehicle manufacturing company for research and production of spare parts for its fighter jets.

Performing the ceremony at the Nnewi, Anambra State headquarters of the Motor Manufacturing Company, the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal
Sadique Abubakar admitted that collaboration between the company and the Air Force had kept its Jet fleet running for months now, stressing
that there was need to fully integrate it into its operations.

Abubakar, who was represented by the Chief of Policy and Plans, Air Vice-Marshal James Gbum, said that the MoU would further solidify the
collaboration, improve local content and engineering as well as save the country a lot of foreign exchange used in importing the expensive parts.

He said: “Our war efforts will be in vain if we don’t do something to ensure we get spare parts because, the Alpha Jets for instance that have form the backbone of our struggle against Boko Haram, we were once down with one or two at most due to
lack of spare parts and mainly the break assemblies of these air crafts.

“The Chief of Air Staff , Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, immediately ordered our research and development cell in Kaji to start to research
into this break assembly overhaul.

They went ahead, carried out the research, but the first prototype they brought couldn’t pass
the test.

“The Nigerian Air Force later discovered that Innoson Vehicle Maintenance Company at Nnewi and that they are very capable of collaborating with the Nigerian Air Force to achieve the required
standards of overhauling our break assemblies”.

He continued: “The company was invited to headquarters Nigerian Air Force for discussion and thereafter went into research and development
collaboration with the Nigerian Air Force and the result was successful.

To this effect, we have reasonable number of these Alpha Jets serviceable daily to fight the war in the North East.

So, today we , as representative of the Chief of Air Staff are here officially to sign a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with Innoson Vehicle
Maintenance Company”

`Abubakar stated that the cooperation of the Nigerian Air Force with the ingenious company was very important in producing some of the
spare parts locally, adding that it was in line with the change agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari.

On his own, Chief Executive of the Company, Chief Innocent Chukwuma said that the company had the human, material and machinery capacity to sustain the collaboration.

“When the Nigerian Air Force came to me, I developed it the way they want it and they are happy with it and there is why they are
here.

The MoU is something that would move Nigeria forward because we cannot rely always on importing items. So anything we can do here, we do it for them”, he stated.