Nigeria’s air force is acquiring 24 Italian-made M-346 attack jets and ten AW-109 Trekker helicopters as part of a fleet renewal strategy, a spokesperson said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Air Force spokesperson Olusola Akinboyewa said in a statement that a team led by Nigeria’s Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar met with executives from Italy’s Leonardo S.p.A. the manufacturer, in Rome who confirmed the first three M-346 aircraft were expected to be delivered by early 2025, with subsequent deliveries running until mid-2026.<\/p>\n
The Trekker helicopters are expected by early 2026, Akinboyewa said.<\/p>\n
“The M-346 and Trekker acquisitions are key steps towards fleet renewal,” Abubakar was cited as saying, emphasizing the need for a maintenance hub in Nigeria to provide long-term support, particularly for the M-346 fleet.<\/p>\n
Nigeria has ramped up military spending in recent years as it struggles to contain attacks by armed bandits in the northwest and a 15-year Islamist insurgency against Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the northeast.<\/p>\n
In June, Nigeria took delivery of two\u00a0“Huey” helicopters, in addition to two Trekkers it already acquired and 12 American-made A-29 Super Tucano light attack jets it received in 2021 to fight insurgents.<\/p>\n
It has pending deliveries for Chinese-made Wing Loong II drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s air force is acquiring 24 Italian-made M-346 attack jets and ten AW-109 Trekker helicopters as part of a fleet renewal strategy, a spokesperson said on Monday. Air Force spokesperson Olusola Akinboyewa said in a statement that a team led by Nigeria’s Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar met with executives from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":12,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1129,27],"tags":[3340,175,3341],"class_list":["post-13752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-aw-109-trekker","tag-nigeria","tag-nigerian-air-force-naf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}