NAF Bags IPRA, APRA Awards for Communication Management

NAF Bags IPRA, APRA Awards for Communication Management

For the second successive year, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has won the prestigious International Public Relations Association (IPRA) Golden World Award (GWA) for Excellence in Crisis Communication Management. In the same vein, the NAF is also among the major winners of the 2020 African Public Relations Association (APRA) Public Sector/Government Category Awards, which recognize Superior Achievement in Branding Reputation and Engagement (SABRE).

The 2 awards were as a result of NAF’s campaign through the documentary, “Women of War”, which highlights the NAF’s ongoing initiatives to empower women in roles hitherto considered to be beyond them due to certain cultural misconceptions.

The 2020 GWA, which was announced by the Member Services Manager of IPRA, Janice Hill in a message to the Image Merchants, Promotion Limited, which spearheaded the campaigns, stated that the selection of finalists and winners was done online this year due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The President of IPRA and Chairman of the Jury, Swetlana Stavreva, stated that the entries were evaluated by multiple judges to ensure balanced assessment. According to her, “we had expected the competition this year to be tough as budgets were cut and people worked from home. So we were proud to see the PR industry fight back determined to tell the world about its best campaigns”, she said. The jury for the selection of the 2020 GWA winners comprised judges from various countries worldwide, including Austria, Bulgaria, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Philippines, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

On his part, the President of APRA, Mr Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, while speaking on the 2020 SABRE Awards, stated that the annual award ceremony, which would have coincided with the Annual Conference earlier scheduled to hold from 11 -15 May 2020 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. A virtual ceremony was eventually held on 10 Sep 20, before the Awards were dispatched to the various winners.

Within the past 5 years, the current NAF Administration under the leadership of the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, in line with its focus on promoting and inculcating the core values of ‘Integrity’, ‘Excellence’ and ‘Service Delivery’, has placed high premium on equal opportunities for both male and female personnel to realize their potentials. The enabling environment created as a result of this policy led to a surge in the involvement of female personnel in areas that were hitherto the preserve of men. Five female pilots have been winged within the period, bringing the total number of female pilots in the NAF to 7. Sadly, the NAF lost one of these female pilots, Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, to a road traffic accident earlier in the year. However, 14 other female officers are currently undergoing training both within and outside the Country to become NAF pilots. Similarly, many other female officers and airwomen are excelling in their various fields of specialization including Regiment and Special Forces, Aircraft/Armament Engineers and Technicians as well as Air Traffic Controllers, amongst others. The NAF’s objective in this regard is to maximize all of the potentials of Nigeria’s vast human resource pool, male and female, to ensure the effective, efficient and timely employment of Air Power in response to Nigeria’s national security imperatives.

It would be recalled that the NAF in September 2019 bagged the IPRA Award for Crisis Communication Management in recognition of the NAF’s management of communication in the aftermath of the attack on Metele in the Northeast of Nigeria. Also, the NAF in 2019 received a ‘Certificate of Excellence’ from the Holmes Report/APRA SABRE Awards Africa for its crisis communication campaign on the counter insurgency operations in the Northeast.

IBIKUNLE DARAMOLA
Air Commodore
Director of Public Relations & Information
Nigerian Air Force
27 October 2020

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NAF WINGS ANOTHER COMBAT HELICOPTER PILOT

Barely a month after a combined graduation of Basic Flying Course and Tactical Flying Course, where 4 officers were decorated with their Basic Pilot Wings and 2 other officers awarded Limited Combat Rating certificates, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) today, 27 October 2020, winged another combat helicopter pilot, Flying Officer Shehu Ibrahim, after his Basic and Advanced Helicopter Flying Training at the Indian Air Force Helicopter Flying Training School, Hakimpat, India. The winging of the combat pilot is yet another milestone in the NAF’s capacity building initiative to meet emerging and contemporary security challenges in the Country.

Speaking during the winging ceremony, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, expressed delight to receive the young pilot back from India and congratulated him for his outstanding performance during the Courses. The CAS emphasized that the NAF considers the human being as its most important resource and would therefore continue to invest heavily in equipping its personnel with the requisite skills to enable them be more effective and efficient in carrying out assigned tasks. In this regard, he revealed that about 200 NAF personnel were currently undergoing training in 9 different countries of the World including the United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Pakistan, China, Czech Republic and South Africa, amongst others.

Air Marshal Abubakar expressed his gratitude to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari, for his support to the NAF which had not only enabled the acquisition of new platforms but also facilitated robust and result-orientated training for enhanced professional performance. He reiterated the NAF’s resolve to sustain its human capacity development efforts, since the Service remains a veritable instrument for the maintenance of national security. The CAS ended his remarks by charging the young officer to put in his best as he joins his colleagues in the North East and North West Theatres to secure the Nation.

The newly-winged pilot, who is a member of the 64th Regular Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy, holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics. He had his ab-initio flying training at 401 Flying Training School NAF Kaduna where he flew the Diamond DA-40 aircraft. He was nominated to attend Basic and Advanced Helicopter Flying Training at the Indian Air Force Helicopter Flying Training School, Hakimpet, India from 7 July 2019 to 6 October 2020. His training at the Indian Air Force comprised a total of 122 flying hours on the Chetak Helicopter.

IBIKUNLE DARAMOLA
Air Commodore
Director of Public Relations & Information
Nigerian Air Force
27 October 2020