Nigeria Air Force spokesman in trouble over confusing statements on Chibok girls

Spokesman of the Nigeria Air Force, a high ranking officer, has landed himself in serious trouble for releasing highly classified and sensitive information on military operations in the North-East to the public.

Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, the Air Force Director of Public Relations and Information, was cautioned by superior officers and compelled to retract a statement credited to him on the fate of more than 200 Chibok school girls abducted from Government Girls Secondary School in Borno State by murderous Boko Haram elements in 2015.

The Air Force director was alleged to have told a broadcast station last week that the Nigerian Air Force has located where the abducted Chibok girls were being held by their abductors, but superior officers viewed the comments as contradicting the position of the Federal Government.

Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa allegedly explained to a Channels Television interviewer that the Air Force has deliberately avoided bombing a specific location in the Sambisa Forest in the ongoing bombing campaign because aerial surveillance of the area suggested that the girls were kept there and needed to be kept safe.

Sources at the Nigerian Air Force Headquarters disclosed that high ranking officials were unhappy when Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa’s interview was broadcast. Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa was named the new Director of Public Relations and Information on January 6, 2016 to replace the former Air Force spokesman, Air Commodore Dele Alonge, who moved to the Defence Headquarters as the Theatre Information Officer.

It was gathered that the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar, personally requested that the Air Force spokesman should explain what he meant when he said during the interview programme that the Air Force had deliberately shunned a specific location in the ongoing bombardment of Sambisa forest, aiming only at the logistics bases of the Boko Haram sect to avoid exposing the hostages to harm.

In the Channels interview, Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa was quoted as saying: “We have no fears that the girls are there, because that particular location has been under surveillance for a while and we suspected maybe it is a kind of ammunition depot or maybe a workshop that they [Boko Haram] are using as their logistics place.

“Once you take off the logistics base, of course, you gradually weaken the resolve of the enemy to be able to prosecute any campaign,” he said.

Explaining the tactics used by the Air Force to locate the girls, Famuyiwa said: “The UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) has become a force multiplier for us because it is cheaper to run these platforms. We are not putting men there because the risk of losing human beings is greatly reduced.

“Again the UAVs have the capability to be airborne for up to eleven hours and it is quite cheap to maintain. So, we have been able to employ the UAV to a great extent to carry out aerial reconnaissance and surveillance basically for intelligence gathering on the activities of the Boko Haram.”

He added that the UAVs have also helped the Air Force to understand Boko Haram’s pattern of movement and how to counter them should they want to strike or spring any surprises.

However, few days after the interview was aired and several concerned Nigerians, including the “Bring Back Our Girls” group, led by former Education Minister, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, celebrated the likelihood of the Chibok girls’ impending return, the Nigerian Air Force issued a statement denying that any positive headway has been made in the search for the abducted girls.

The statement, which was also signed by Group Captain Ayodele Famuyiwa, the Air Force Director of Public Relations and Information, said: “The attention of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has been drawn to a statement to the effect that the NAF has located the position of the Chibok girls.

“Please, let it be known that this statement is a misrepresentation of the interview that the NAF Director of Public Relations gave the Channels Television that was aired on Friday, 12 February, 2016.

“The NAF is hereby making it categorically clear that in the said interview the director made mention of the NAF’s ability to identify possible location where the girls might be held.

“Hence, the NAF wishes to categorically state that it has at no time identified the specific location of the Chibok girls. However, it is working round the clock with surveillance aircraft covering the over 157,000 kilometre area of the North East in order to identify the position of not only the Chibok girls, but other Nigerians that are held captives.

“Towards the realization of this goal, the NAF has from January 2016 till date using aircrafts, ISR platforms such as ATR-42, B-350 and CH-3 UAV flown surveillance missions totalling over 346 hours consuming about 85,887 litres of Jet A-1 and 3,830 litres of Mogas costing N15,337,862:50 and $19,150:00 respectively.

“Therefore, whilst the specific position of the Chibok girls is not yet ascertained by the NAF, we have not folded our arms on the surveillance flights and will continue to use these flights to degrade the capacity of the terrorists and as soon as possible locate the position of the Chibok girls and other Nigerians that are under captivity.”

The statement was seen in many quarters as an attempt to repair the damage and embarrassment that the disclosure at the interview may have caused to both the Nigerian Air Force and the government.

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