•58 senior officers redeployed
From Molly Kilete, Abuja
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 number of commands under the air force.
The shake-up in the air force was announced in a statement released yesterday.
NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Adetokunbo Adesanya, who made this known in Abuja, gave the names of the two new Commands as the Air Training Command (ATC) with headquarters in Kaduna and Ground Training Command (GTC) with headquarters in Enugu.
The new commands, he said, were excised from the now defunct Training Command (TC), thus bringing the total number of commands in the NAF to six.
Adesanya, in a statement said 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.
He also said in the statement NAF has redeployed 58 officers comprising 25 Air Vice Marshals (AVMs), 20 Air Commodores,five Group Captains, one Wing Commander, four Squadron Leaders, two Flight Lieutenants and one Flying Officer.
Some of the newly-posted officers to Defence Headquarters include Air Vice Marshals 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.
Others are AVMs Nurudeen Balogun who is now Chief of Training and Operations at the headquarters NAF, 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.