Society:

How Many
Presidential Jets Are
Enough For A Child
That Grew Up With No
Shoes?
By DR M.K Hassan.

In the 2015 budget
submitted to the National
Assembly as reported by
media outlets, Mr.
President with penchant
for buying executive jets
for his own personal
leisure, did not disappoint
us. He has a 400 million
naira budget item as
deposit for trade-in for a
brand new executive jet.

In the 2015 budget submitted to
the National Assembly as reported
by media outlets, Mr. President
with penchant for buying executive
jets for his own personal leisure,
did not disappoint us. He has a
400 million naira budget item as
deposit for trade-in for a brand
new executive jet. It is no wonder
that the Presidential Air Fleet has
more modern and functioning
airplanes than the whole aircrafts
of  Nigerian Air Force (NAF) put
together.
In this time of insecurity, Nigerians
deserve to know why this
administration has failed to deal
with Boko Haram before the
elections so that they can decide if
they want to continue on this path
of failure. One of the reasons is,
instead of arming the NAF with
modern fighter jets, Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan (GEJ) has been building
a fleet of brand new presidential
executive jets. While Jonathan is
busy junketing the globe in his
brand new executive jets, the
struggling NAF is left with obsolete
aircrafts to fight insurgents. The
Nigerian citizens especially in the
North East have been left in the
mercy of marauding insurgents
taking over our territory. With this
kind of careless defense strategy
from the President, how can the
country defeat Boko Haram?
According to the well known
intelligence and defence
information company, IHS Janes
website,http://www.janes.com/
article/45858/nigeria-wants-to-
procure-scorpion-isr-and-light-
attack-jet, “The Nigerian Air Force
(NAF) currently fields a very limited
offensive counter insurgency
(COIN) capability in the guise of 11
Chinese-built CAC Chengdu F-7
fighters; as well as 21 Aero L-39ZA
Albatros, 12 Alenia MB-339, and 12
Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet trainer
and light strike platforms. It also
fields seven russian Mil Mi-24
'Hind' assault helicopters”. Based
on this available information on
the main assets of the NAF, it is
clear that it is handicapped. It
may be one of the reasons why the
Jonathan’s Government could not
defeat Boko Haram.
Note that the 12 French built
Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets have
been the main fighter Jets in the
fight against Boko Haram in the
last six years . For those who do
not know, Alpha jets are out of
production since 1991. They have
some of the most obsolete
surveillance capability one can
think of due to low computing and
imaging processing power of the
electronics on board. The Jets were
designed for the attack of long
range fixed targets like Barracks in
conventional warfare and not close
and highly mobile targets like Boko
Haram’s pick up trucks convoys. To
summarise the capability of these
alpha jets, it is like trying to use
the early version of the black and
white Nokia 3310 phone for
facebook and internet browsing
today instead of the smart phones
like blackberry Z30, or iPhone 6.
For all his promises of defeating
boko haram, Jonathan is trying to
use these jets as his main fighting
air power to defeat them. Imagine
GEJ and his military commanders
using these to find Shekau!
The Chinese made Chengdu F-7 jet
fighters were acquired by Obasanjo
in 2005 and delivered up to 2010
as reported by Janes. Obasanjo and
“Made in China” goods have one
thing in common: Unreliability,
and high failure rates when and
where it matters most. The
Chengdu F-7 were among some of
the Jets that have been crashing
and burning down during this
conflict. I believe any fighter pilot
that is asked to go on mission with
any  of the unmaintained jets, will
definitely make his last prayers
before flying one.
I am not going to talk about the
Czechoslovakian made Aero
Albatros L39 and the 12 Alenia
MB339 military trainer jet aircrafts.
Those are so old that they are
suppose to be in the museum, and
not for training our Jet Fighter
Pilots. The old Russian MIG
helicopters are among those
crashing helicopters we have got,
and some did crash recently and
were in the news.
Some of these jets were burned
down by Boko Haram when they
attacked Maiduguri in March 2014
as shown in the pictures released
online by the insurgents. This begs
for explanation, why were even
some of the Jets parked in
Maiduguri, the epicenter of Boko
Haram, instead of outside the
region? Why would Air Marshall
Bade allow this? At least we know
that for security of defence assets,
in most war setting situation, long
range Jet Fighters are kept out of
conflict regions and are most of the
time signaled to come in for
attacks. For example, will the US
Air force park their most important
jet fighters, the Northrop Grumman
B2 stealth bombers, in Baghdad
waiting for terrorists to come and
burn them down? No! Anyway this
is a story for another day.
How can rag tagged insurgents be
moving in convoys for 100’s of
kilometers within Nigerian borders
unchallenged with air power and
be able to establish a caliphate in
Gwoza? In a pathetic show of
comedy, instead of the President to
acquire real drones like the
Raptors from General Atomics,
Stalkers from Lockheed Martin or
their type from any where to stop
the terrorists from moving in large
convoys, he had his own drone
made for him in Kaduna. This
president is unserious! The Kaduna
made “Gulma” drone he went to
launch some months back, one can
buy something better than it for
three thousand dollars (600
thousand naira) on Ebay website.
The President in his usual
characteristic comical display of “C
in C” powers praised the toy
Gulma drone and said that it will
be used to fight Boko Haram. Even
on the launch day, the Gulma
drone was a sitting duck on display
inside a building. It was not flown
to demonstrate its capabilities to
fight boko haram and only God
knows how much was spent in
building Gulma. What a fraud and
a joke!
As an expert in radar systems and
electronics, I can say without
mincing words that these out of
style aircrafts the NAF uses in this
battle against boko haram with not
so good night vision capability,
magnetometers, vision cameras,
gyroscopes, and other must have
sensors on board fighter jets,
cannot find Shekau and his rag tag
army. These military assets are
incapable of accurately tracking
highly mobile insurgents targets
like Boko Haram that move in large
convoys to attack our towns and
villages.
Does it bother Jonathan that his
Air force is in shambles since he
came to power and cannot fight
Boko Haram? NO! The reason is his
measure of how successful and
strong the economy and his
country is, is not by the fighting
power of his Air force.The President
measures the prosperity of his
country and its military strength
with how many new jet owners we
have since he came to power, and
how many executive jets he has
acquired for himself. O boy, we are
in serious trouble.
Do not despair, there is a new
strategy and fighter jet for fighting
boko haram and it is the PVC. PVC
stands for the Permanent Voters
Card. Yes, it is a weapon that
Nigerians must acquire to defeat
this incompetent government and
Boko Haram. No matter what, every
citizen must get this fighter jet,
the PVC, since the Government
has failed to get fighter jets for its
Air force to fight Boko Haram. The
way to use the PVC fighter jet is to
come out on the election day, line
up no matter the heat and
inefficiency of INEC on that day, to
cast the vote, defend the vote
against external aggression of
riggers and their collaborators so
that we can have a new
government that will arm the Air
force. The new Government to be
headed by Muhammadu Buhari,
has better strategy of defeating
Boko Haram. It will sell all these
unnecessary executive presidential
jets acquired by Jonathan and buy
the fighter jets and drones needed
to send Boko Haram parking. His
presidency will need only 2
executive jets: one for use and one
as a spare in case of maintenance.
GEJ has already bought 4 jets
since he came to power in addition
to the 9 Jets he met in the fleet.
Finally, we have to ask how many
Presidential Jets will be enough for
a child that grew up with no
shoes? and have you acquired your
PVC Fighter Jet from INEC?