Nigeria: Do We Have An Army?

Tunisia, Angola, and Ethiopia? I don't think so.

Morrocco and Algeria yes. That's a given.

@texazzpete

So mortar tubes and rounds are easy to make? You are funny

Having the ability to produce and having the ability to deploy military hardware are two different things.  What is wrong in being happy that we can produce our own mortars instead of buying them like most African countries do?

The Nigerian military has been upgrading it's hardware for a couple of years now. We are the only country in West Africa that are strong enough to deploy and maintain combat formations several miles outside our borders.

So we are stronger than most African countries except South Africa, Egypt, Morrocco, Algeria. Why don't we just say we have a good military and leave it at that. So far FOur other countries are better than us. We can be in like fifth place and still swaggling and claiming to be the best.

but this topic is now boring sha. of all the armies in africa it is only us that they always beg for peace mission. why?

na wa 4 u sha 

It ridiculous and dishearting to see people cpmapring the nigerian army to that of somalia, How dare u? I know naija aremy aintthat strong oo but haba , compared to that of poverty strickened somalia,, na bam bam , shut up, get da da stepping and stop posuing up shit

because we prefer to spend money on social things not war, war is not in our character.

what about our social characters known all around the global villege.

now you said something about naija that we dont want pple to put in our character.

culture, religious, good politicians, money transfer experts, suffering and smiling,  best shit buyers, and lot of all known atrocity of the world.

some atrocities were necessary for global survival.

White lies, so they said.

I told you war is not in our character, keeping stealing and sending money in foreign account maybe yes.

@ Denex. Short Service Commission is a route throgh which graduates can join the Nigeria Armed Forces as commissioned officers without going through NDA. After the SS courses, they are commissioned as 2nd Lt in the army or its equivalent in the Navy and Airforce. Initially, SS Commissioned officers could not rise above a certain level, but i think that has now been reviewed. NDA soldiers do not see them as real soldiers anyway, but they are not reservists.

My friend is a frontline fighter pilot in NAF and he told me that the Airforce is equiped to deal with most forces in Africa, both within and outside our territory.

Nigerian army is generally known to be among the best organised in Africa and have proved themselves time and time.

It helps to manufacture your own arms, but that is not necessarily the be it all in weapon acquisition. Isreal is more or less equiped by the USA, i.e their most important weapons come from the US. America had to supply them with more arms, even against ordinary hezbollah. 

It is very important to have allies and Nigeria has "brown nosed" enough to have allies that would readily sell her arms with no questions asked, but what we have now will surfice for our needs.

@Zebra.
Your friend is under the command of people who are under the command of my friend at the same base but I am not going to give you my friend's name. Your friend informed you that we have just two Alfa jets and he flies one of them? Big lie!!

We have over 100 combat aircrafts. Our combat aircrafts are MIGs, SEPECAT jaguars and most recently the Chinese Chengdu fighters. My friend says that the air force is considering whether to ground the MIGs or upgrade them. We have numerous trainers and transport aircrafts and a few bombers. We also have dozens of attack and transport helicopters. We need a radar-jamming device.

Mind you, I never said that we will defeat all air force in Africa. I said that we are equipped to deal with most forces in Africa both within and outside our territory and I stand by the statement.

@ Zebra - you are not doing your friend any favours by mentioning his name here, remember its a public forum, its not the best place to discuss matters that concerning national security.

@FACE - The Chinese Chengdu fighters are nothing but advanced copy of a MIG fither jet , widened to accomodate two engines, also included is some  technology copied from the F16. It's more advanced than the stock of MIG's, Jaguar's and Alphas the NAF has in its stable.

F-8IIM  finback:
To improve the poor performance of J-8II, SAC (Shengyang Aircraft Co.) has developed F-8IIM, a private venture for the oversea market. Here an F-8IIM was displaying a variety of AAMs (PL-9, AA-10, PL-5B) it can carry at Zhuhai International Airshow in November. It features a Russian Zhuk-8II look-down, shoot-down radar (forward sphere 70km, rear sphere 40km), replacing the obsolete Type-208 radar onborad J-8II. The Zhuk-8II able to to track up to 10 targets and engage 2 targets simultaneously with radar-guided AAMs (e.g. PL-11 or AA-10), as well as to launch anti-ship missiles (e.g. Kh-31). Other improvements include new HUD and multi-functional display, combined INS/GPS, integrated ECM system, HOTAS control, a 3,000 hour life airframe and two upgraded WP-13AIII turbojet. The change in aerodynamics is minimum and aircraft is actually heavier, resulting in a slightly poorer maneuverability.

http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2005/05/welcome-to-age-of-google-journalism.html


I suppose it meets NAF's immediate needs.

Does this bit now explain whether Nigeria has the best army in West Africa?