Why Nigeria Drones Couldn't Be Deployed To Hunt Boko Haram
Category: Boko Haram News
Tsur Dvir, a marketing officer for Aeronautics Defense
Systems, a firm based south of Tel Aviv, Israel that supplied Nigeria
with Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles on Tuesday, revealed that the
country's drones which were bought years ago cannot be deployed to hunt
Boko Haram, because they are grounded due to poor maintenance.
The marketer, who made the shocking revelation to an international media, said that the Nigeria surveillance drones could have been used to track insurgents hide out in efforts to rescue the kidnapped girls, but they aren't factional.
The marketer, who made the shocking revelation to an international media, said that the Nigeria surveillance drones could have been used to track insurgents hide out in efforts to rescue the kidnapped girls, but they aren't factional.
"To the best of our knowledge, these systems aren’t operational" Dvir said.
Dvir,
who was speaking on the sidelines of a conference organised by Israel
Defense magazine further revealed that since the purchase of the drones,
Nigerian clients had not commissioned Aeronautics to carry out any
routine maintenance on it.
"We did receive an inquiry from them
about spare parts, but it never turned into a deal. I wish it had" he
said, arguing that with their extensive flying range and thermal cameras
capable of picking up body heat at night, the Aerostars could have
helped screen northern Nigeria for the missing girls.
Dvir, who declined to state how many the Aerostars are said: "They (drones) are probably parked in a yard somewhere".
Dvir, who declined to state how many the Aerostars are said: "They (drones) are probably parked in a yard somewhere".
It was reported that Nigeria's defence spokesperson could not be reached for comments.
It
would be recalled that in December 2013, Nigeria unveiled a locally
made drone at an Air Force base in Kaduna, which has not yet flown since
its display.
The international media said a federal government
source and a former Israeli military attaché to Nigeria both confirmed
the information, although they said details were sketchy owing to the
secretive nature of Israeli-Nigerian military cooperation.
According
to the Nigerian government official, the Israeli drones were among many
procurements that quickly went obsolete because of lack of maintenance
while the former attaché confirmed that the purchase was done in 2006,
with the aim of deploying the drones in the Niger Delta, where militants
were attacking crude pipelines as well as kidnapping oil workers before
amnesty offered three years after.
The company nor the source
couldn't ascertain how many were bought, but an aerospace industry
source said that each drone worth between $15 million and $17 million.
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