Chrys
Ahead of the inauguration of a new President on May 29,
2023, Nigeria’s Boeing 737 Presidential jet has been flown out of the country
for comprehensive maintenance.
Villa sources told our correspondent that NAF 001, which has
served the President, Muhammadu Buhari, in the past eight years was taken out
of the country over the weekend.
Although the location is not known, past maintenance on the
aircraft had been carried out by its manufacturer, Boeing, in the United States
of America.
Boeing’s military aircraft division builds modified 737
planes at its manufacturing facilities in Everett and Renton, Washington
(outside of Seattle), and South Carolina.
The 20-year-old aircraft last flew the President to Accra,
the Ghanaian Capital, where he attended a Summit of the Gulf of Guinea
Commission.
In his next four weeks in office, Buhari will be flown on
another aircraft on the Presidential Air Fleet, the source said.
On Tuesday, April 3, 2001, the Senate approved a sum of
N5.5bn for the purchase of a new presidential aircraft for then-President
Olusegun Obasanjo.
In February of that year, Obasanjo sought the Senate’s
approval for $19m as part of monies to purchase eight new aircraft for the
Presidential air fleet.
“It is necessary to start the process of renewing the
presidential fleet of aircraft, some of which are 20 years old and beyond,” he
had told the upper legislative chamber.
The senate had refused an earlier request by Obasanjo in
2000, but he renewed his request after a technical fault left him stranded in
Switzerland where he had been attending the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Boeing aircraft will be returned in May and handed over
to the new administration after major upgrades to its avionics and other
mechanical systems.
