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.

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!!!...

SmartyPants:


With regards to the bolded:

1. You are correct in saying you "think". Since in fact one can scour the entire collection of history books in all the libraries in the world, and one will not find a single instance of Camerounian troops of any kind whether they be gendarmes or soldiers, ever successfully winning any sort of battle.

2. Sadly, your country does not even possess a solitary warship. The so-called warship that arrived in Calabar was a mere patrol boat. Reasonable beings can see that had it been that glorified canoe was in Nigerian waters on a hostile mission, by now it would be resting in the cradle of the ocean floors, sadly, along with its occupants.

As a matter of fact, may i inform you that Nigeria is the only country anywhere in West Africa with fully functional warships. Even those who presume themselves to be our closest rivals, Ghana, do not have them.

3. You have compared Nigerian police with Cameroonian soldiers. Again, even a moderately well-educated secondary school girl would not make such a poor logical composition. Further, where is the evidence that Cameroonian soldiers are begging to be sent to the warfront? produce just one article to prove it

Concerning the general truth:

In the history of conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon, Nigeria has always dominated, inflicting embarrassing defeat on what you Cameroonians would call soldiers.

wow....
your first pointing on winning or not winning a battle.. aha while Nigerian troops were fleeing from boko haram our patriotic soldiers were singing songs of glory and victory.have you ever heard of Cameroon hiring mercenaries to do their fight?

on the second point on weaponry.. Nigerian air force and infantry is dominated Biafra era weapons. lol..while our patriotic army have undergone radical modernisation since the start of the 2000s..we have a small but efficient military while you guys are bragging over old outdated, inefficient, incompetent, Ill discipline,mismanage army.
On the third point you raised you displayed full Nigerian trait of naivety and ignorance..
gendarmes are not soldiers!! they play a complementary role as police.. we have a better well organise less corrupt police core than Nigeria..OK back to my explanation on gendarme.. they are trained to deal with situation as those happening in the South east region of Nigeria which is now capital for pirates, arms groups,oil pipe vandals etc..Cameroon gendarme proved the Worth when they dealt with the UPC terrorist in the 1960 shortly after independence.. they even succeeded I. holding large chunks of bakassi..
oohhh!! Nigerian officers only know of how to seize power in a coup..signs of poor discipline and unpatriotism...
most importantly am still to see a Nigerian leader intelligent enough to have diplomatic military relationships with Russia, US,China,France,Israel etc with all of them having personnels on ground!!!! that's what we call strength!! which Nigeria is totally lacking!!!..

SmartyPants:


Try to sound intelligent. The Nigerian army of 2014 was grossly under equipped due to corruption. But since 2015 we have pummeled boko haram so to sieze on that to somehow infer that your military is better is laughable. A well educated secondary school student wouldn't make such poor logical deduction.

As for bringing the biafra war if 50 years ago... Again, try to have sense.

I tell you, only Nigerias Mobile police force alone can sack Yaoundé in under 5 days. Go and read history to learn What general Abacha did to your arses when you tried to misbehave over the bakassi peninsula.

.
aha I read one article in which Nigerian army drag nigerians on mud by claiming they pushed Cameroonian soldiers to some few km away from Yaoundé.. I love the way Nigerians are correctly misinform...
I think the Cameroonian gendarme alone can humble Nigeria..look at the south east of Nigeria.kidnappers,pirates, arm groups are operating with impunity.. I think you guys need the services of the Cameroonian gendarme..our terror units will humble them in 5 days
I don't see how soldiers who flee from boko haram can think of fighting Cameroon..
we also know the outcome of a war is does not depend on the battle field alone..diplomatically Nigeria is inferior to Cameroon.. we can still pull the same stunt we pulled on you guys over bakassi..look our warship used your waters as if it is a free space..am waiting to see when a Nigerian warship will cross over to Cameroon uninvited or without notification
I read an article in which Nigerian police were protesting their transfer to the north where there is boko haram..Cameroonian soldiers are begging to be transfer up north where there is boko haram..
Nigerian army is always winning wars on paper.. killing shekau every day lol.

there are other ships in equatorial Guinea and Congo. today is our national day I heard it on television so I decided to check what Nigerians think about it..

for those warmongers the Nigerian army may be large and frightening but it is grossly inefficient and undisciplined.. U guys always brag of marching to Yaoundé in a week.but flee from the ill arm, ill train boko haram..what of a well organise Cameroon?.. How long did it take you guys to defeat Biafra? despite help from Cameroon with the blockade. imagine if we allowed resources to flow into Biafra.