Super Tucano carries a wide variety of weapons, including precision-guided munitions, and has the ability to give Nigeria an air advantage.
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
The Nigerian government says it has obtained clearance to use the A29 Super Tucano fighter jets against terrorists.
The A-29 Super Tucano carries a wide variety of weapons, including precision-guided munitions, and has the ability to give Nigeria an air advantage against the bandits.
But a traditional title holder in Yobe State, and former publisher of Desert Herald Newspaper, Alhaji Tukur Mamu, said when the Nigerian military drops bombs from the skies against bandits, the targets are mostly women, little children and cows as the bandits would have gone into hiding.
According to Vanguard Newspaper, Mamu challenged the Nigerian Air Force whose fighter jets killed bandits in Zamfara state to produce public evidence of their raids.
Said he: “The simple question is that we should ask ourselves…for example these reports that they are saying that they’ve bombarded this camp and that camp, is there any evidence on the ground?
“There is a particular forest we visited in Niger State. The whole of the settlement had been bombarded. This settlement has nothing to do with bandits. In fact, they showed us two wells full of innocent people, dead, inside, casualties of these bombardments.
“That’s exactly what these bandits were telling us. They said, ‘Whenever we hear the sound of an aircraft, we run to our caves, and then run. If they will succeed in killing anybody, it is the small children, the wives or the cows.’
“That’s their own testimony. So, you can imagine a country where, for example, bandits would gather in a forest and be celebrating. You don’t even have the intelligence to track them and eliminate them. Then for you to say you will succeed in killing them?” he queried.
Meanwhile, the federal government says the Super Tucano it took delivery of last year, will be put into use against the bandits.
The attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, during an interview on Good Morning Nigeria, a breakfast show on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) on Tuesday, said the Federal Government secured the clearance after assuring America that it would be used according to international best practices.
He said: “We are also confronted with banditry in the North-West and that is why we acquired Military hardware against terrorists and bandits. They are causing major threats to the lives of Nigerians. The Military hardware will be used against them.
“The gazetting of the Super Tucano is in progress. The clearance to use the Super Tucano has also been obtained.”