The Director of Public Relations and Information (DOPRI), Group Ayodele Famuyiwa, in a statement yesterday, said that the new intakes passed out over the weekend from the Ground Training Centre, Kaduna having successfully completed their initial six-month military training.
Famuyiwa said that the new entrants into the Nigerian Air Force constitute the Basic Military Training Course 35/2016.
According to him, the Course started early January 2016 with 596 intakes but five of them were dropped for various reasons and were unable to complete the training.
He said: “The training objective is to inculcate basic military skills in trainees and provide them with general military orientation required for them to function in the NAF.
“The passing out recruits have all been assigned specialist trades and posted to NAF formations across the country pending the time they would be programmed for specialist training.”
The DOPRI said that the next batch of intakes, comprising 1,250 recruits are expected to commence training on 25 July 2016 in line with the NAF recruitment projection for 2016.
He stated that the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar, while addressing the recruits during their passing out parade, urged them to brace up for the challenges ahead in their call to duty.
Abubakar, he said, informed the passing out recruits that military service is not just a means of livelihood, but a clarion call to serve the fatherland, and which sometimes may require making the supreme sacrifice.,
Famuyiwa said the CAS, while speaking further as the Reviewing Officer, expressed the confidence in the ability of the recruits to live up to expectations as the training curriculum was recently reviewed in line with emerging security challenges to impact in them the right skills and training needed to deal with any threats to national security.
“The CAS also used the opportunity of the passing out parade to show the newly installed Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) camera on the ATR-42 MPA to the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, who was a Special Guest at the occasion.
“The NAF, of recent, has deployed the ATR-42 MPA to the northwest in support of Operation Sharan Daji to checkmate the activities of cattle rustlers, kidnappers and armed bandits,” he stated.