Air Force promises to sustain assault against Boko Haram

THE Nigerian Air Force has commenced a critical evaluation of its assets in furtherance to its air assault offensive against the Boko Haram insurgents in North-East and crude oil thieves in Niger Delta.

The Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshall Sadiq Abubakar‎, who disclosed this during an operational visit to 97 Special Operation Group in Port Harcourt, said the air assault against the Boko Haram will be sustained and efforts would be made to have collateral damage during military offensive.

“The Air Force is still attacking even this morning.

We have been avoiding collateral damages and that is very important to us. We have stressed it and we are telling our pilots to respect international laws with regard to arms’ conflicts and we are going to emphasis on it”, he said.

Abubakar, who held a closed-door meeting with top Air Force officers at the Base, gave assurance that the military is doing everything possible to evaluate what had been done in the past with a view to restrategising so that the country can have a very effective force to deal with security challenges both in the Niger Delta and the North-East

He said: “We are trying to look at processes, what have we been doing in the past. What do we need to do more to be more effective and that is why this is the second unit I am visiting since I came.”

The Chief of Air Staff explained that he was in Port Harcourt to assess the men, look at their assets, officers and men who had been contributing so much in terms of dealing with the security challenges, saying that his assessment of the military assets is crucial as this will inform the service of what equipment to acquire in order to enhance the effectiveness of the Air Force in dealing with these challenges.

“We can look at the system we are operating, evaluate it with view to identifying areas of deficiencies and recognising that there are deficiencies and working on those deficiencies.

“The Air Force is still attacking even this morning. We have been avoiding collateral damages and that is very important to us. We have been stressing on this to our pilots, we are telling our pilots to respect the international laws in regard to arms’ conflicts.