EVarn:
Very interesting article,if somewhat heavy on the pro-nigerian rhetorics.
France remains a threat to Nigeria's continental ambition(more so than South Africa).
Try to complete the article,I'm keenly interested.

Blue3k:

I never liked how they had so much regional influence compared to Nigeria. The biggest control the have is the currency through the West African frank. The only reason we're behind is because of our own internal issues.

SSBN:
In 2006 Nigeria and Cameroon Almost went to full scale war and the Nigerian populace knew nothing about it. Two decades of French interference in Cameroonian politics and covert manipulations against Nigeria's security interest led to skirmishes on the contested Bakassi Peninsula. Thanks to a new civilian leadership control of the military tensions were eventually de-escalated. But what if war had indeed broken out with an Anglo/ECOWAS alliance on one side and a Franco Cameroonian and Chadian alliance on the other side. Would ECOWAS countries have even agreed to come to the aid of its most powerful member state as the ECOWAS SECURITY CHARTER stipulates? or would a surprise premptive attack Cameroon and Chadian troops backed by French air power overwhelm the Nigerian army. In this [i]three part series [/i]we examine the implications of a potential war between both counties.

In 2005 Militants from the Niger Delta returning from a bothched raid on an Exon Mobile oil terminal open fire when they encountered Cameroon soldiers, killing 20 Cameroonian soldiers.

Mistaken the militants who wore army uniforms as Nigerian soldiers, Cameroons reprisal came swiftly. Nigeria troops stationed in the disputed Bakassi Peninsula came under fire from Cameroonian troops. The attack, just 20 miles from Calabar killed 6 Nigerian soldiers and injured dozens more. Abuja believed that the attack was premeditated with Yaounde brining in its BIR (Cameroonian Special Forces) to ambush Nigerian soldiers. Alleged abuse against Nigerian civilians living in the islands made the Nigerian government furious.

In March, Nigerian soldiers launched a blistering counterattack against Cameroonian forces. A Nigerian army patrol unit violated Cameroonian territory by infiltrating the peninsula as far as the Rio del Ray and opened fire on a Cameroonian army outpost, killing dozens of Cameroonian soldiers. Cameroonian troops returned fire, killing five Nigerian soldiers. Fighting intensified after Cameroonian artillery units without warning shelled Nigerian army outposts in the Bakassi Peninsula, killing seven Nigerian soldiers and scores of civilians. The Nigerian army responded this time with overrwelming fire power by air, land and sea. Nigerian artillery troops shelled a Cameroonian patrol outpost, at the same time two Mi-24 attack helicopter penetrated 24 kilometres into Cameroonian airspace and opened fire on a Camerooian army outpost where Cameroonian gendarmes were watching a football game, killing 20. The Nigerian Navy also dispatched 24 armed speedboats to the peninsula to police the creeks.It was after this incident the Cameroonian army reached out to its colonial master France with whom it has a Defence Treaty.


In January 2007 the Nigerian Air Force was placed on maximum alert after the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) discovered that France was building a military base in a town near the Bakassi Peninsula. It should be noted that despite a 1996 ICJ ruling o refrain from military activities until a final court decision is reached Cameroon and Nigeria seemed hell bent on re-igniting the issue while France fuels the fire.

The Nigerian Air Force based on the eastern flank of theTactical Air Command in Yola and Maiduguri was placed on maximum alert. The Nigerian Army 3rd Amoured Division was also placed on alert. The National Security Council, headed by Nigerian President ordered the immediate reactivation of two Nigerian Air Force bases in Yola and Maiduguri recently closed and its compliment of two attack helicopter squadron was ordered to be ready by the end of the month.

The discovery that France was building a military base in Gagura, a town in Cameroon located near the disputed Bakassi Peninsula border with Nigeria came as a shock.It stunned Nigeria's military planners. According to the Intelligence report the French base was nearly completed and had facilities for deploying military aircrafts. FRENCH military aircrafts. There was little doubts concerning whose planes will taking off from those airfields, the French will not build a multi million dollar air base for Cameroons compliment of 6 Alpha jets. The swift action and coordination by Nigeria's military planners afterwards did not go unnoticed by the Franco military alliance. The message was clear - If the Franco Cameroonian, and by extension France is eager to solve the dispute ilitarily, Nigeria will likely oblige.

EVarn:
More reason why we have to get our house in order and map out a clear national blueprint.
Nigeria needs to double her development every year for the next 20 years in order to overtake countries like France and the UK,a staggering but possible feat.
We need to grow powerful quickly enough to challenge France both politically and militarily on the African continent.

SSBN:
...........Part 3.

French nefarious and destabilizing actions against the interest of the Nigerian state continued.

In 2008 the U.S administration exprressed concern over reports of a multiple billion dollar arms procurement program with a certain Asian country. Their concern was more in relation to the level of investment the Nigerian government is placing on making this a secrete below the radar deal.

In a meeting with former U.S Ambasador then Minister of Defence, Lt.-Gen Theophilus Y. Danjuma told the former American Ambassador to Nigeria, Howard Franklin Jeter that the Nigeria's acquisition of military hardware at the heat of its dispute with Cameron over the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula were in response to the arming of Cameroon by France. He cited a series of Inteligence report by the NIA citing the shipment and delivery of an undisclosed number of MILAN -3 anti tank guided missiles . To mask the origin the shipment was made via an Iranian container ship to the Gambia, an ECOWAS member state with allegiance to Paris.

The MILAN -3 is a French made anti tank guided missile. It has a tandem shaped high explosive warhead and an extended range of 3,000 m. It should be noted than the Cameroonian army have no amoured division or tanks. For all practical purposes it was clear these weapons were acquired to negate Nigeria's armoured tank brigades from standoff distances. The Nigerian army had no defence against such weapons.

" The decades long dictatorial regime of Cameroon" he quiped...."will be capable of wiping out Nigerian tanks from standoff distances, " are we not of the right to self defense"

"The Nigerian Army is not and has never been a threat to its neighbours, on the contrary its been a force for peace and stability in the region. Our boys fought side by side with your marines in Somalia"

"If the French Republic sees the Nigerian State as a behemoth to be cut to size and employs her vassals in the region to do her bidden then the Nigerian government will take steps necessary to hold French assets at risk. We will acquire long range standoff long range ballistic weapons technology to put French ships at risk. We will build a National Space Research system to protect our homeland Mr Jeter."


In the world of diplomacy words can carry political and diplomat consequences. Within months the Defense Minister resigned (was relieved ). The North Korean Ballistic Missile Technology Transfer deal was DEAD before it even began and the Nigerian State was marked for destruction by the year 2015, and the CIA was contracted to carry out the "balkanization" of one of Africa's most powerful countries and in August 2009 the United States officially warned Nigeria over nuclear and ballistic missile technology.

Abuja's response was nothing short if cowardice. According to the President's spokesman

"nothing was written in stone" and that any North Korean missile help would be used for "peacekeeping" and to protect its territory and helps Nigeria's Space ambitions. It said it was not seeking nuclear technology or any other weapons of mass destruction.

In a feat of high octane hyperboly the international media ran stories of Nigerian having a nuclear weapons program with a pariah state, citing several high level meetings between Nigeria's Vice President Atiku Abubakar and North Korean official in Abuja as proof. I'm an attempt at appeasement Nigeria's Vice President denied the charges. All planned weapons procurement and upgrades by the Nigerian military was shelved - A mistake the Nigerian government will pay for in blood. A year after the CIA predicted a Nigeria break up in 2015 the most populous black nation the world has ever seen will be fighting for her very own survival.

In defiance of the United States, cash strapped Pakistan offered to share nuclear and ballistic missile know how with Nigeria. The offer was announced by the Nigerian defence ministry in a statement saying that General Muhammad Aziz Khan, chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff, had made the offer to the Nigerian defence minister, Rabiu Kwankwaso, during a visit to Nigeria.

Speaking at the opening of the discussions, the then Pakistani chairman of joint chiefs of staff ... said that his country is working out the dynamics of how they can assist Nigeria's armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power.

The careless announcement provoked consternation in Washington, coming just a month after the mastermind behind Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted publicly that he had run a black market in nuclear weapons materials.

U.S officials were troubled by Nigeria's persistent intentions, nearly five years after the country restored civilian rule, and at a time when it is " under no threat from its neighbours". Just months earlier Nigeria's vice president's announced that it had struck an agreement with North Korea to gain access to Pyongyang's missile technology. The offer was subsequently played down by a spokeswoman to Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

The French government was furious at these persistent developments. As one French diplomat aptly puts it

"If the Nigerians go through with this purchase, they will have earned the unenviable distinction as the first sub-Saharan African state to introduce ballistic-missile technology to the region. They will become the initiator of a supremely wasteful and potentially deadly arms race," Paris questioned Nigeria's motives which it has alwayed viewed with suspicion.




......to be continued.


Wow..this is really intriguing ; it will never be well with NATO

SSBN:
...........Part 2.

Since the return of Democratic rule to Nigeria on May29,1999, the Nigerian government had been steadily cutting down its Army and Air Force, allbeit for political reasons (coup plots have traditionally been carried out by army and Air Force officers).

The number of ground combat divisions decreased from thirteen pre May 29 to seven post May 29. Over four hundred army Nigeria's army officers were retired (purged). The decimation of the Nigerian military by Nigeria's civilian leadership was brutal. Perhaps more brutal was its success in hiding this from the Nigerian people. In under a decade the Nigerian army was transformed from an attack oriented force with an impeccable track record in not just West Africa but to countries as far as Somalia, to a defense oriented army with lots of machine gun and artillery divisions but incapable of offensive action - as Nigerians found out in Mali.

But despite the drastic scale down off the Nigerian army, it still had a massive overkill in financial and manpower capacity relative to the Chadian and Cameroonian army put together. To put things into perspective the Nigerian army has an active frontline personnel of 150,000 and a reserve force of 32,000. By comparison Cameroon had an active duty force of 15,000 men and reserve personnel of 10,000 men. This makes Nigeria's reserve force alone twice the size of Cameroons frontline army. In an all out military confrontation Cameroon is hopelessly outmatched , no amount of training could compensate for its numeric disadvantage. In the end Nigeria's manpower and economic capacity will certainly triumph.

For Cameroon, a defense treaty with France is only rational. But this comes with a price, as Western powers like France will use Cameroon to fight proxy wars to secure access to its resources. If war with the Franco alliance innevitable, the Nigerian military would prefer to engage and destroy French military assets before they can target Nigerian military positions.

It is difficult to envisage a scenario in which Nigeria decides to pay the political cost associated with climbing the ladder of escalation. But If Nigeria had chosen to act it would have had three choices.

The first will be a mechanized attack on Garoua, a city in northern Cameroon along the Benue River approximately 30 miles east of the Nigerian border where much of French military and surveillance facilities are being built. France has 3,000 troops spread out across Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali.

Such an attack would largely have been modest in scope and focused on consolidating held territory. Advancing further deep into Cameroonian territory at this point will be counte productive. An attack like this would likely have been carried out by a dozen tanks and two thousand troops supported by artillery units and helicopter gunships. In the absence of French air power and since the Cameoonian army have virtually no tanks or amoured regiments of comparable size they might seek to push back Nigerian forces by air attacks carried out by its compliments of MB-326 light attack jets. This however will represent nothing more than an harassment raid designed to inflict as much casualty as it can before French military assistance come in to play, but with the seizure of these facilities and bases it will take weeks for the French to carry out any meaninflul counter strike, save carrying out bombing raids on the very facilities it has spent millions building.

A second option would have been the same surprise attacks on French military bases under construction but without any accompanying occupation force, but choosing instead to hold all French economic investments and companies in Nigeria at risk. France has more investment in Nigeria than it has in all its ex colonies combined. These companies are worth billions of dollars and Abuja will not miss a beat nationalizing and freezing the assets of French companies in the face of French military adventurism against Nigeria.

It is not clear wether or not the Chadians will seek to intervene militarily by coming to the aid of its Francophone ally even if it meant risking a full blown war with Nigeria, but Abuja could not have afforded to find out the hard way. France has a base at N'Djamena, Chads capital and a contingent of 800 French troops.They provide Chad with aerial surveillance. If Nigeria's surprise attack is to yield any form of strategic gains those facilities in Chad must be taken out as well. One major question is whether or not Nigeria would have coupled an attack on Cameroonian military facilities with a surprise attack on Chadian military bases near the border with Nigeria. But one thing is certain, a Nigerian attack against Chad would not have been limited in scope, the Chadian leadership would most certainly have been targeted as well. At this point the Nigerian military will for the first time since the Civil war have mobilised fully for war.

On the plus side a Nigerian pre-emptive attacks would have played to Abuja's strengths in both financial prowess and manpower. At the time of these events Nigeria had the second largest external reserve in Africa, second only to Algeria. The full resources of the State in the air, at sea and in space would have been geared towards the prosecution of the war. Two years earlier Nigeria's emergence as Africa's preeminent Space Power was demonstrated when during the tragic Hurricane Katrina a Nigerian remote sensing sattelite took the very first photo of New Orleans during and after the disaster and shared it with a startled NRO ( America's National Reconnaissance Office). Nigeria has 5 satellites in orbit, two of which are remote sensing. Designed to monitor crop harvests and natural disasters these space based infrastructure would have been used to monitor enemy movement, given Nigeria an unassailable advantage.

On the minus side an unprovoked attack against Cameroon and Chad would have earned Nigeria worldwide condemnation. An attack on French military facilities with the potential for French casualties would also have played into the French strategy of curtailing the gravitation of Francophone countries towards Nigeria's economic and cultural sphere of influence by building permanent military bases in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, effectively encircling the Nigerian Federation. The condition for French military assistance will be contingent on the Francophone leaders willingness to support French intetest.

The third option entails Nigeria willing and preparing to absorb the first blow. This doesn't mean that the Nigerian Army and Air force
have to wait for French bombs to rain down on them, but the Nigerian government will most certainly require some clear, public signal of the Franco alliance intent to escalate to high intensity conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Cameroonian and Chadian forces. If Nigeria's past military engagements in Chad, S-Leone, Liberia and Cameroon gives any indication, Nigeria will not allow France and Cameroon to fully mobilize in other to either to either launch a first strike or properly prepare to receive a first blow.

On the flip side a surprise pre-emptive attack by either side might be unlikely. Instead a series of small skirmishes will escalate over a few incidence, finally triggering a set of steps on the steps by the Cameroonian military that indicates to Abuja that Yaounde is genuinely prepared for full scale war. These steps will include the presence of French warships in the gulf of guinea, unusual movements of troops and heavy equipments towards the border. At this moment Nigeria's military planners will decide whether to attack preemptively or stand down and wait.

Which ever the case the Nigerian Army would have made rapid gains on the battlefield in the first few days before the arrival of French reinforcement, pitting a large mechanized forces with troops outnumbering the defenders by a factor of 3 to 1, against a better trained Chadian and Cameroonian ground forces equipped no tanks and obsolete artillery. Nigerian artillery men are some of the best in Africa. We can expect that the Nigerian Navy will deploy its warships in advance of the onset of hostility. Nigeria's surface fleet and air force will see Cameroonian ports and airports as legitimate targets for destruction before the arrival of French naval ships and will attack with air and naval assets. The Nigerian Navy will seek to disrupt Cameroonian shipping by blockading its waterways and communication systems. The Cameroonian Navy is basically non-existent, it has a personnel of just 600 men and will be no match for the most powerful Navy in black Africa with 17,000 men and over 70 capital ships.The mismatch is beyond ridiculous.

France had already proven its disdain for Nigeria by supporting the secessionist in the Nigerian civil war and its clever bit of subterfuge to cripple the worlds most powerful economic and military block in absolute terms - ECOWAS, the most democratic region in Africa by sowing seeds of dissent and distrust among member States against Niger.French machinations go into areas as far as football. The French have largely been successful in their divide and conquer strategy of subjugation. As a result, despite Nigeria's sacrifices in both man power and finance in the region most countries perceive Nigeria as a far greater threat than France. Nigeria inarguably the most hated country in Africa.

From Nigeria's perspective the goal of an economic and political integration of West and Central Africa has pitted Nigeria and France against each other in a grinding, never ending proxy war that has no clearly defined ending.

A Nigerian attack against Cameroon and Chad would have been a tactical success but a strategic failure or worse, an open ended full blown war against the most powerful military in Western Europe with the military backing of the world's most powerful military alliance behind it. Nigeria would never be able to recover from such a conflict. The country would have been destroyed and balkanized, squashing forever Africa's only hope of an all powerful black nation capable of advancing the interest of Africans on the global stage.

From the French perspective, Nigeria, a country whose population is bigger than the entire population of France and Great Britain combined and whose cultural and economic prowess assures the continual dominance of English speaking Africa on the continent represents the only obstacle between France and its criminal intent to subjugate and steal the resources of its poor colonies. A 2003 protest by Nigeria against France over receiving colonial taxes from Cameroon did not go down well with Paris. The global balance of power is gravitating away from Europe towards Asia, Africa is the only region on the planet where France has some semblance of influence. France is holding Francophone Africa by the leash and will not give it up without a fight.

......to be continued.

diymba:
ahahaha reading that I couldn't help pity the person that waste his/her time writing unrealistic nonsense..
let me ask..is the Nigerian army made up of robots?
also is the Cameroonian army ranked by traitors and Cameroonians bunches of cowards?...
this is the same plan plane that made u guys thought of defeating Biafra in weeks.. only to end up calling for help from the whole world to be able to subdue starved,I'll armed,I'll trained,lead by an incompetent leader..
let may ask how come the same Nigerian army flee in front of less than 5000 boko haram fighters armed with practically nothing!!!..
why didn't ur said air force bombard book haram while you expect ur broken down planes to perform magic with Cameroon..
I like the way the way this writer presents the Nigerian army as an unstoppable force!!! always inflicting more casualties on Cameroon during bakassi!!, matching to a few km from Yaounde chaii!!!!.. it makes me believed Nigerians have lost their reasoning faculties...
u guys shld keep on swimming in illusions.. capturing garoua in a few days but fleeing in front of book haram!!!...

SSBN:
Now yes.....years ago IMPOSS8BLE. They would have embarrassed us. Ironically Boko Haram saved us such embarassment. It is sad that there are people who in Nigeria who still refuse to believe the France and Cameroon were months away from staging an attack and occupying the multi billion dollar Obudu reserve in Calabar in a false flag operation, using Bakassi as a pretext. Boko Haram forced us to sit up and take our defence seriously, though at great cost.30,000 lives,tho loss of prestige for the Nigerian army in the region. In Mali we couldn't even send a fully capable expeditionary force, the Chadians stole the show. It wasn't until Nigeria Navy blockaded Gambia by sending NNS UNITY, as well as sending air power to protect a possible ground operation did ECOWAS regain confidence in the capability of the Nigerian armed forces.

Cameroon has one of the best trained militaries In Africa, but then again its easier to train a small army of 15,000 men. But with or without French support it will be nothing short of suicide for Cameroon to engage Nigeria militarily today. Biya knows this, France know this, Chad know this. No amount of patriotic sentiment wail change that.

diymba:
ahahaha reading that I couldn't help pity the person that waste his/her time writing unrealistic nonsense..
let me ask..is the Nigerian army made up of robots?
also is the Cameroonian army ranked by traitors and Cameroonians bunches of cowards?...
this is the same plan plane that made u guys thought of defeating Biafra in weeks.. only to end up calling for help from the whole world to be able to subdue starved,I'll armed,I'll trained,lead by an incompetent leader..
let may ask how come the same Nigerian army flee in front of less than 5000 boko haram fighters armed with practically nothing!!!..
why didn't ur said air force bombard book haram while you expect ur broken down planes to perform magic with Cameroon..
I like the way the way this writer presents the Nigerian army as an unstoppable force!!! always inflicting more casualties on Cameroon during bakassi!!, matching to a few km from Yaounde chaii!!!!.. it makes me believed Nigerians have lost their reasoning faculties...
u guys shld keep on swimming in illusions.. capturing garoua in a few days but fleeing in front of book haram!!!...

diymba:
ahahaha reading that I couldn't help pity the person that waste his/her time writing unrealistic nonsense..
let me ask..is the Nigerian army made up of robots?
also is the Cameroonian army ranked by traitors and Cameroonians bunches of cowards?...
this is the same plan plane that made u guys thought of defeating Biafra in weeks.. only to end up calling for help from the whole world to be able to subdue starved,I'll armed,I'll trained,lead by an incompetent leader..
let may ask how come the same Nigerian army flee in front of less than 5000 boko haram fighters armed with practically nothing!!!..
why didn't ur said air force bombard book haram while you expect ur broken down planes to perform magic with Cameroon..
I like the way the way this writer presents the Nigerian army as an unstoppable force!!! always inflicting more casualties on Cameroon during bakassi!!, matching to a few km from Yaounde chaii!!!!.. it makes me believed Nigerians have lost their reasoning faculties...
u guys shld keep on swimming in illusions.. capturing garoua in a few days but fleeing in front of book haram!!!...

SSBN:
...........Part 2.

Since the return of Democratic rule to Nigeria on May29,1999, the Nigerian government had been steadily cutting down its Army and Air Force, allbeit for political reasons (coup plots have traditionally been carried out by army and Air Force officers).

The number of ground combat divisions decreased from thirteen pre May 29 to seven post May 29. Over four hundred army Nigeria's army officers were retired (purged). The decimation of the Nigerian military by Nigeria's civilian leadership was brutal. Perhaps more brutal was its success in hiding this from the Nigerian people. In under a decade the Nigerian army was transformed from an attack oriented force with an impeccable track record in not just West Africa but to countries as far as Somalia, to a defense oriented army with lots of machine gun and artillery divisions but incapable of offensive action - as Nigerians found out in Mali.

But despite the drastic scale down off the Nigerian army, it still had a massive overkill in financial and manpower capacity relative to the Chadian and Cameroonian army put together. To put things into perspective the Nigerian army has an active frontline personnel of 150,000 and a reserve force of 32,000. By comparison Cameroon had an active duty force of 15,000 men and reserve personnel of 10,000 men. This makes Nigeria's reserve force alone twice the size of Cameroons frontline army. In an all out military confrontation Cameroon is hopelessly outmatched , no amount of training could compensate for its numeric disadvantage. In the end Nigeria's manpower and economic capacity will certainly triumph.

For Cameroon, a defense treaty with France is only rational. But this comes with a price, as Western powers like France will use Cameroon to fight proxy wars to secure access to its resources. If war with the Franco alliance innevitable, the Nigerian military would prefer to engage and destroy French military assets before they can target Nigerian military positions.

It is difficult to envisage a scenario in which Nigeria decides to pay the political cost associated with climbing the ladder of escalation. But If Nigeria had chosen to act it would have had three choices.

The first will be a mechanized attack on Garoua, a city in northern Cameroon along the Benue River approximately 30 miles east of the Nigerian border where much of French military and surveillance facilities are being built. France has 3,000 troops spread out across Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali.

Such an attack would largely have been modest in scope and focused on consolidating held territory. Advancing further deep into Cameroonian territory at this point will be counte productive. An attack like this would likely have been carried out by a dozen tanks and two thousand troops supported by artillery units and helicopter gunships. In the absence of French air power and since the Cameoonian army have virtually no tanks or amoured regiments of comparable size they might seek to push back Nigerian forces by air attacks carried out by its compliments of MB-326 light attack jets. This however will represent nothing more than an harassment raid designed to inflict as much casualty as it can before French military assistance come in to play, but with the seizure of these facilities and bases it will take weeks for the French to carry out any meaninflul counter strike, save carrying out bombing raids on the very facilities it has spent millions building.

A second option would have been the same surprise attacks on French military bases under construction but without any accompanying occupation force, but choosing instead to hold all French economic investments and companies in Nigeria at risk. France has more investment in Nigeria than it has in all its ex colonies combined. These companies are worth billions of dollars and Abuja will not miss a beat nationalizing and freezing the assets of French companies in the face of French military adventurism against Nigeria.

It is not clear wether or not the Chadians will seek to intervene militarily by coming to the aid of its Francophone ally even if it meant risking a full blown war with Nigeria, but Abuja could not have afforded to find out the hard way. France has a base at N'Djamena, Chads capital and a contingent of 800 French troops.They provide Chad with aerial surveillance. If Nigeria's surprise attack is to yield any form of strategic gains those facilities in Chad must be taken out as well. One major question is whether or not Nigeria would have coupled an attack on Cameroonian military facilities with a surprise attack on Chadian military bases near the border with Nigeria. But one thing is certain, a Nigerian attack against Chad would not have been limited in scope, the Chadian leadership would most certainly have been targeted as well. At this point the Nigerian military will for the first time since the Civil war have mobilised fully for war.

On the plus side a Nigerian pre-emptive attacks would have played to Abuja's strengths in both financial prowess and manpower. At the time of these events Nigeria had the second largest external reserve in Africa, second only to Algeria. The full resources of the State in the air, at sea and in space would have been geared towards the prosecution of the war. Two years earlier Nigeria's emergence as Africa's preeminent Space Power was demonstrated when during the tragic Hurricane Katrina a Nigerian remote sensing sattelite took the very first photo of New Orleans during and after the disaster and shared it with a startled NRO ( America's National Reconnaissance Office). Nigeria has 5 satellites in orbit, two of which are remote sensing. Designed to monitor crop harvests and natural disasters these space based infrastructure would have been used to monitor enemy movement, given Nigeria an unassailable advantage.

On the minus side an unprovoked attack against Cameroon and Chad would have earned Nigeria worldwide condemnation. An attack on French military facilities with the potential for French casualties would also have played into the French strategy of curtailing the gravitation of Francophone countries towards Nigeria's economic and cultural sphere of influence by building permanent military bases in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, effectively encircling the Nigerian Federation. The condition for French military assistance will be contingent on the Francophone leaders willingness to support French intetest.

The third option entails Nigeria willing and preparing to absorb the first blow. This doesn't mean that the Nigerian Army and Air force
have to wait for French bombs to rain down on them, but the Nigerian government will most certainly require some clear, public signal of the Franco alliance intent to escalate to high intensity conventional military combat before it can begin engaging Cameroonian and Chadian forces. If Nigeria's past military engagements in Chad, S-Leone, Liberia and Cameroon gives any indication, Nigeria will not allow France and Cameroon to fully mobilize in other to either to either launch a first strike or properly prepare to receive a first blow.

On the flip side a surprise pre-emptive attack by either side might be unlikely. Instead a series of small skirmishes will escalate over a few incidence, finally triggering a set of steps on the steps by the Cameroonian military that indicates to Abuja that Yaounde is genuinely prepared for full scale war. These steps will include the presence of French warships in the gulf of guinea, unusual movements of troops and heavy equipments towards the border. At this moment Nigeria's military planners will decide whether to attack preemptively or stand down and wait.

Which ever the case the Nigerian Army would have made rapid gains on the battlefield in the first few days before the arrival of French reinforcement, pitting a large mechanized forces with troops outnumbering the defenders by a factor of 3 to 1, against a better trained Chadian and Cameroonian ground forces equipped no tanks and obsolete artillery. Nigerian artillery men are some of the best in Africa. We can expect that the Nigerian Navy will deploy its warships in advance of the onset of hostility. Nigeria's surface fleet and air force will see Cameroonian ports and airports as legitimate targets for destruction before the arrival of French naval ships and will attack with air and naval assets. The Nigerian Navy will seek to disrupt Cameroonian shipping by blockading its waterways and communication systems. The Cameroonian Navy is basically non-existent, it has a personnel of just 600 men and will be no match for the most powerful Navy in black Africa with 17,000 men and over 70 capital ships.The mismatch is beyond ridiculous.

France had already proven its disdain for Nigeria by supporting the secessionist in the Nigerian civil war and its clever bit of subterfuge to cripple the worlds most powerful economic and military block in absolute terms - ECOWAS, the most democratic region in Africa by sowing seeds of dissent and distrust among member States against Niger.French machinations go into areas as far as football. The French have largely been successful in their divide and conquer strategy of subjugation. As a result, despite Nigeria's sacrifices in both man power and finance in the region most countries perceive Nigeria as a far greater threat than France. Nigeria inarguably the most hated country in Africa.

From Nigeria's perspective the goal of an economic and political integration of West and Central Africa has pitted Nigeria and France against each other in a grinding, never ending proxy war that has no clearly defined ending.

A Nigerian attack against Cameroon and Chad would have been a tactical success but a strategic failure or worse, an open ended full blown war against the most powerful military in Western Europe with the military backing of the world's most powerful military alliance behind it. Nigeria would never be able to recover from such a conflict. The country would have been destroyed and balkanized, squashing forever Africa's only hope of an all powerful black nation capable of advancing the interest of Africans on the global stage.

From the French perspective, Nigeria, a country whose population is bigger than the entire population of France and Great Britain combined and whose cultural and economic prowess assures the continual dominance of English speaking Africa on the continent represents the only obstacle between France and its criminal intent to subjugate and steal the resources of its poor colonies. A 2003 protest by Nigeria against France over receiving colonial taxes from Cameroon did not go down well with Paris. The global balance of power is gravitating away from Europe towards Asia, Africa is the only region on the planet where France has some semblance of influence. France is holding Francophone Africa by the leash and will not give it up without a fight.

......to be continued.