An Israeli military aircraft firm, Aeronautics Defense Systems, has described Nigeria’s military drones as inoperative due to lack of maintenance.
The surveillance drones, procured from Israel some years back, may have come in handy in the search for the Chibok schoolgirls, but according to the manufactures of the drones, the aircrafts have been left grounded due to poor maintenance.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference organised by Israel Defence magazine, Tsur Dvir, Marketing Officer for Aeronautics Defence Systems, a firm based south of Tel Aviv, which supplied Nigeria with the Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles, said that since the drones were purchased several years ago, Nigerian clients had not commissioned Aeronautics to carry out any routine maintenance.
“To the best of our knowledge, these systems are not operational,” Dvir said on Tuesday. “We did receive an inquiry from them about spare parts, but it never turned into a deal.”
He asserted that with extensive flying range capabilities and thermal cameras capable of picking up body heat at night, the Aerostars could have helped scour northern Nigeria for the missing girls.
“They (drones) are probably parked in a yard somewhere,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, according to a government source and a former military attaché to Nigeria, failure to maintain the drones is the chief reason why it cannot be commandeered in this time of need, though details of the actual state of the drone is un known due to the highly classified nature of Israeli-Nigerian military cooperation.
The former attaché said the drones were purchased in 2006, with a view to deploying them in the oil producing Niger Delta, where militants were attacking crude pipelines and kidnapping oil workers before the amnesty programme. But, militancy issues in the region had come to a sudden halt so that the aircrafts were never used.
Last week, Israel had sent intelligence and hostage negotiation officers to Nigeria to work with American, British and French experts already aiding the Nigeria in the search and rescue mission of the more that 200 girls.
An Israeli official, however, clarified that the help sent were not operational troops; rather, he said they were there to advice.
