By Gift Samuel, The Sight News
The Nigerian Air Force(NAF) has dissociated itself from an open letter to the Minister of Finance claiming among other things that the Honourable Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun was deliberately starving the NAF of funds and that NAF personnel were being owed their monthly allowances.
The letter titled “Boko Haram: Open Letter to Finance Minister”, that was reportedly written by one retired NAF officer, “Wing Commander AA Abubakar” of Minna, Niger State and published in a National Daily, specifically stated that the NAF could therefore not buy aviation fuel and hence, its inability to respond to the Nigerian Army’s request for air support in a recent Boko Haram attack in Sassawa, Yobe State.
Responding to the allegation, the NAF’s Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, noted that the scenario painted by the author(s) of the malicious letter is far from what obtains in today’s NAF.
Accordingly, he emphasized that the NAF dissociates itself, in unequivocal terms, from the contents of the letter and from the supposed writer.
In his words; “The Federal Government Administration has been highly supportive of the NAF through adequate and timely provision of funds without which the NAF could not have recorded its many achievements, especially in the past 2 years. Consequently, the NAF has always acknowledged the significant role being played by the Federal Government and its various agencies, including the Ministry of Finance, towards the successful accomplishment of its mission.
“For the records, the NAF has aviation fuel in abundance for the conduct of its air operations and could thus not have failed to respond to any request for air support on account of lack of aviation fuel. Besides, the Defence Headquarters had since made it clear that the reports of NAF’s failure to respond to requests for air support in Yobe were a figment of the imagination of enemies of Nigeria. Likewise, personnel of the NAF participating in the counterinsurgency operations are not being owed their monthly allowances” he noted.
The DOPRI however stated that available NAF records do not indicate the existence of any “Wing Commander AA Abubakar (rtd)”, the supposed author of the open letter, adding that it is therefore clear that the open letter was authored and published by mischief makers who are hell bent on causing distraction and disaffection within Government agencies probably with a view to eroding the gains being made in the fight against insurgency.
He assured the general populace of the commitment of the NAF’s personnel to completely eliminating the scourge of insurgency in Nigeria.
