The Nigerian Air Force (NAF), on Tuesday, said it had established two new Commands and a Branch for effective operations.

The Service has also redeployed 58 senior officers.

The Director of Public Relations and Information, NAF Headquarters, Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, said this in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja.

According to Adesanya, the exercise was part of the restructuring efforts of the Service to enhance the effective and efficient projection of air power.

He said the two new Commands were: the Air Training Command (ATC) with Headquarters in Kaduna State, and the Ground Training Command (GTC) with Headquarters in Enugu State.

“These new commands were excised from the now defunct Training Command (TC), thereby bringing the total number of Commands in the NAF to six.

“The ATC will be responsible for the implementation of policies on flying and air operations while the GTC will be responsible for the implementation of local ground training,” he said.

Adesanya added that the newly-established Branch is known as Communications Branch, and was unbundled from the former Logistics and Communications Branch.

This, he said, brought the number of NAF branches to 10.

He said the new Branch would handle all the needs of NAF with regards to communications, electronics, radar maintenance, Information and Space Technology.

“Sequel to this development, NAF has redeployed a total of 58 officers comprising 25 AVMs, 20 Air Commodores, five Group Capts. , one Wing Commander, four Sqn. Ldrs., two Flt.- Ltr. and one Flying Officer.

“Those posted to Defence Headquarters were AVMs Wakili Ahmed, Defence Policy and Plans; Ibrahim Umaru, Director Safety and Manual; Benjamin Nweze, Director, Civil-Military Relations.

“Eche Agwungwu, Director Space; Bernard Chiobi, Director of Operations and Onyemaechi Osahor, Director-General Defence Research Production Bureau.

“Senior Officers posted within HQ NAF include: AVMs Nurudeen Balogun who is now Chief of Training and Operations; Muhammadu Muhammed, Chief of Policy and Plans; Charles Otegbade, Director of Plans,” he said.

“Others are: Olusoji Awomodu, Director of Museum and Archives; Sani Ahmed, Director of Policy; Muhammad Abdul-Wahab, Air Secretary; Kingsley Lar, Chief of Standards and Evaluation; Napoleon Bali, Director of Training.

“Christian Dii, Managing Director Aircraft Engineering and Technical Services Ltd; Abdulganiyu Olabisi, Chief of Aircraft Engineering; Charles Oghomwen, Chief of Communications, Cletus Udeagulu, Director Research and Development and Paul Dimfwina, Director of Evaluation,” Adesanya said.

Similarly, the newly-appointed Air Officers Commanding, he said, are AVMs Samson Akpasa, Ground Training Command, Enugu; Saddiq Kaita, Special Operations Command, Bauchi; and Mohammed Idris, Tactical Air Command, Makurdi. (NAN)