In its continued efforts to ensure decent and comfortable accommodation for its personnel for effective service delivery and professional performance, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), today, 6 April 2020, commissioned 4 newly remodeled/renovated blocks of 36 x single-bedroom flats for Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) at Sam Ethnan Air Force Base (SEAFB) Ikeja. The projects were aimed at ensuring conducive living environment for the 144 benefiting personnel and their families as a motivation to enable them discharge their duties more effectively and efficiently. The NAF has also continued to strengthen measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 through sensitization of its personnel and emplacement of appropriate precautionary measures.

Commissioning the newly-renovated blocks, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, who was represented by the Air Officer Commanding Logistics Command (AOC LC), Air Vice Marshal Lawal Alao, disclosed that since assumption of office, the current NAF leadership has prioritized the provision of decent housing for personnel. This, he said, has resulted in large-scale construction of new office and residential accommodations, as well as the massive renovation/upgrading of the existing accommodation that were in various states of disrepair, to address housing inadequacies in various units across the Country. According to the CAS “We shall continue to undertake such laudable projects whose resultant effects would revitalize your professional competence and yield higher quality output”.

Air Marshal Abubakar also stressed that the NAF, operating in concert with sister Services and other security agencies, would continue to work assiduously to ensure the restoration of peace and security in all parts of the Country through the effective projection of Air Power as well as the contribution of its Regiment and Special Forces personnel for Internal Security Operations across the Country. The CAS urged the beneficiaries to reciprocate the gesture by ensuring that the facilities are used with high sense of responsibility whilst continuing to contribute their quota to ensure the security of Nigeria and Nigerians in their various places of deployment.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Commander 651 Base Services Group, Air Commodore Rasaq Olanrewaju, expressed his gratitude to the CAS for the priority attention given to the welfare needs of personnel which had continued to make them better prepared to respond to various exigencies of duty. He disclosed that the disinfection and sanitization of SEAFB was at about 90 per cent completion, in accordance with Headquarters (HQ) NAF directives, adding that sensitization programmes had also been sustained to educate the Base Community on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Commander further highlighted that, with the support of HQ NAF, SEAFB had emplaced palliative measures to alleviate the sufferings of the Base Community occasioned by the lockdown of Lagos Sate as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He further disclosed that one of such palliatives was the establishment of a COVID-19-Compliant Mobile Farm Market on the Base, with the assistance of the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture.

Also present at the event were NAF Director of works, Air Commodore Abiola Amodu, as well as some Unit Commanders in Lagos area. Highlight of the commissioning ceremony was presentation of keys to some of the beneficiaries.