Nigeria to spend 150b naira to refurbish military planes
Abuja, Nigeria - Nigeria\'s federal government has earmarked 150 billion
naira to refurbish military planes grounded by years of neglect, according to Defence Minister Yayale Ahmed (125 naira=US$1).
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) will spend the money to bring back to service five C-130 Hercules Transport planes as well as fighter and trainer jets, the Minister said.
Already, one the five C-130 planes remaining in the inventory of the
NAF has been successfully refurbished in Bordeaux, France, where it underwent the Periodic Depot Maintenance.
The plane arrived in the capital city of Abuja Tuesday, while the
remaining four are also slated to undergo the same maintenance
The Minister said the newly-refurbished aircraft spent one year in France \"and it has been successfully done and transformed into a brand new aircraft.\"
\"All the NAF aircraft that you used to see sleeping, we have now
injected funds for them to start sneezing and from that stage they will go crawling, jumping and flying,\" he said Tuesday in Abuja, at a ceremony to formally receive the C-130 plane from France.
In addition to the refurbishment of the air force planes, the Minister
said there were plans to purchase new ones \"when the occasion demanded\".
Ahmed said the return to service of the transport planes would enable
the country to airlift its troops for peacekeeping mission and also assist needy African air forces.
Eight C-130 aircraft were originally in the inventory of the NAF, but
by 2005 most of them had been grounded due to years of non-maintenance.
Out of the eight grounded transport planes, NAF decided to de-commission three, leaving the five now slated for maintenance.
Abuja - 24/10/2007
Panapress