By Gift Samuel, The Sight News
Abuja- The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar has expressed the readiness of the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) to partner with the Ministry of Communication in deploying Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the fight against insurgency.
The CAS who made the disclosure on Tuesday when he received the Minister of Communication in the NAF headquarters, stressed that the desires of the NAF is to have a highly professional and disciplined Airforce that has all it takes to deal with both the challenges in Nigeria and some of the challenges within the West Africa sub region.
He stressed that with the complete change in the battle space of the 21st century,there is a serious connection between the NAF and the Ministry of Communication.
According to him,”We are doing so much in the area of capacity building and I agree with you so much that there is need for us to partner with the Ministry of Communication. Right now we are collaborating with NigComSat to see how we can downstream on air plane surveillance”.
While appreciating the initiatives put in place by the Ministry to add value, the CAS noted that ICT University is very important as NAF is also training its officers in order to build capacity.
Air Marshal Abubakar assured of immediate action to carefully study the initiative so as to key in, take full advantage of what is available and to expand the area of collaboration.
Earlier, the Minister of Communication Barr. Adebayo Shittu congratulated the Chief of Air staff and his team for the critical role played in defeating criminality and bringing stability to the country.
Shittu further noted that the visit was to solicit for collaboration and partnership with the Airforce which he stressed is closer to science and technology and as well requires a lot of professionalism in regard to Engineering, ICT and innovations to triumph in battle.
He said; “since the Ministry of Communication is the one saddled with the responsibility for advancing Science and ensuring that technology and innovations are utilized to bring about peace and security, I thought there is need for me to visit you here and share ideas with you and call for collaboration and partnership”.
He added that with officers and men of the NAF being a significant sector of the Nigerian populace, there is need to interact, invest and partner for the benefit to go round.
