Air Force Career
Wuyep entered the Nigerian military as an officer cadet in 1970 and was commissioned into the Nigerian Air Force in 1973. Wuyep completed his primary flying training in Kaduna Nigeria and gained his wings after training with the United States Air Force at Vance Air Force Base. As a trained pilot, Wuyep flew both jet and transport aircraft although most of his flying career was spent on the C-130 Hercules. This included airlift operations in Eastern and Southern Africa in support of the independence movements in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia as well as missions in support of the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force in Lebanon. In 1980, Wuyep attended the Junior Command and Staff College in Pakistan and from 1983 to 1984 he undertook the Senior Staff Course at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji.
By 1994, Wuyep had been promoted to Group Captain and was appointed the Commander of 301 Flying Training School in Kaduna. He was then successively appointed the Senior Air Staff Officer at Tactical Air Command's headquarters, the Director of Operations and Air Officer Commanding Training Command. From June 2000 to April 2001, Wuyep served as Air Officer Operations.
In April 2001 Wuyep was made Chief of the Air Staff, the senior appointment in the Nigerian Air Force and he was promoted Air Marshal on 1 October 2001. Following the Nigerian Air Force's receipt of a 3 million US dollars aid package in the form of American C-130 spare parts, Wuyep called for a yet closer relationship between the Nigerian Air Force and the United States Air Force. Wuyep acknowledged that development of the oil and gas in the Gulf of Guinea could be mutually beneficial to both Nigeria and the United States. Wuyep also expressing his hope that the former training program for Nigerian aircrew with the US Air Force would be restored. In May 2006, Wuyep was unexpectedly dismissed as Chief of the Air Staff by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Wuyep was succeeded by Air Marshal Paul Dike.
Read more about this topic: Jonah Wuyep
Famous quotes containing the words air, force and/or career:
“Spread outward. Crack the round dome. Break through.
Have liberty not as the air within a grave
Or down a well. Breathe freedom, oh, my native,
In the space of horizons that neither love nor hate.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a manoeuver, a blow with an agreement.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)