FG Acquires 5 Helicopters For Security In N’Delta

Nigerian government has agreed to purchase five used Puma helicopter from France to assist security forces in the oil producing Niger Delta and on foreign peace keeping missions.

Sources hinted The Tide that the Federal Executive Council has approved the defence ministry’s request to purchase the five helicopter from France for 68, 675 million euros about $102 million.

The five super puma helicopter will be deployed in the area of air support fro Nigerian troops in peace keeping operations as well as air support fro surveillance and reconnaissance in the Niger Delta.

Recently, the Minister for information, Dr Dora Akuyili said the attacks by militants and criminal gangs in the impoverished Niger Delta have battered Africa’s biggest energy industry over the past three years, preventing Nigeria from pumping much above two third of its oil production capacity.

Strikers against oil facilities have subsided after thousand of former gunmen disarmed and accepted president Musa Umaru Yar’Adua amnesty offer which expired in early October.