₦airaland Forum

The issue is so clear that a primary school student can understand it.

That's why, in my view, those that are pretending not to understand it are simply playing politics and I won't take them seriously.

The system operator is telling you that gencos can't buy gas, you are talking about transmission lines! What are they transmitting, fresh air??

Sangoamadioha1:
Nigeria's one cure for all our problems, 'remove subsidy'.
A very lazy way of confronting issues. Like fuel, make una remove am and make we see if any thing apart from price go change 😒

1) When was the last time that we experienced fuel scarcity?

2) If you were actually being serious you would have proferred your own solution rather than attacking another person's

It's inevitable, the ridiculous subsidy has got to go!

Dr Toks (Akpakomiza) @fimiletoks

No sensible person will invest in a sector that operates under a regulatory price cap with prices below production cost. The gas sector needs $20bn worth of investments. Who will bring money to invest in this mess? We have abundant gas, but we don't have the needed investments.

Gas producers are hesitant to supply Gencos because Gencos also operate under a price cap and they can't get their full payments from Discos and NBET, Discos also operate under a tariff cap. Subsidy has destroyed the entire value chain. If subsidies were that effective, where are Nigerians still poor of after years of subsidy payments.

The more subsidies grew, the more poverty expanded. Allow a market-driven price model and a willing buyer-willing seller arrangement. We can't subsidise our way out of poverty.

https://x.com/i/status/2027336901468791203

Nigeria Independent System Operator @OFFICIALNISO_NG

PRESS RELEASE

DECLINING POWER OUTPUT ATTRIBUTABLE TO GENERATION SHORTFALLS AND GAS SUPPLY LIMITATIONS

https://x.com/i/status/2027303108758347930

Ishilove:
Which is why I mentioned that the one who alleged must have evidence, irregardless of the long standing rumour.

Yes, but you also said this part. There is nothing that proves that the rumour is true and there is smoke without fire.

Ishilove:
This rumour has been circulating for a very long. There must sure be a fire somewhere, seeing as this particular smoke has refused to dissipate

Ishilove:
Going by what is happening in that industry, I say there is a probability that there is an element of truth in this rumour.

That doesn't mean anything. We are talkimg about a specific individual here, not the industry as a whole. You either have evidence that Eniola Badmus did something or you don't.

What if a foreigner says, "Going by what is happening in Nigeria today, there's a probability that you are a fraudster"?

Continuation

Reform


As with everything in Nigeria, the issue of human rights abuses in the north-east was politicised.

Supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan accused Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, President Barrack Obama, Senator Patrick Leahy, northern elders and anyone that brought up the issue of being in support of Boko Haram.

On the other hand, some northern leaders accused President Jonathan of hating northerners. They said that he knew about and sanctioned the human rights abuses. I have told you about this in the past. I told you that one of the problems that we had was that some southerners claimed that the APC was behind Boko Haram, just because General Buhari was a northerner, while some northerners claimed that President Jonathan and the PDP were behind Boko Haram and that they created Boko Haram in order to reduce the voting population in the north. Of course these stories are completely untrue.

I do not believe that President Jonathan knew about the human rights abuses initially, but as things got worse and many organisations around the world complained, he began to take action to solve the problem.

As I said before, the center of the problem was at Giwa Barracks. Soldiers had arrested so many people that the detention center was full. Anytime the soldiers were angry, they would go into town and arrest people based on the profiles that I wrote about above.

People were also being subjected to all kinds of torture at the detention center.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that only innocent or profiled people were detained at Giwa Barracks. In fact, that was one of the problems, innocent people were detained with hardcore terrorists at the center (and this created recruitment opportunities for the terrorists).

I do not think that there is any place in Nigeria that has been attacked as much as Giwa Barracks. I saw so many videos of all out battles at Giwa Barracks between 2011 and 2017. Boko Haram repeatedly attacked the barracks because some of its commanders were detained there. The terrorist group often recorded videos of its attempts to take over the barracks and these videos often appeared on the internet.

Boko Haram would often attack the wall of the barracks with multiple suicide bombers (VBIED, that is, they would ram the wall with cars that were heavily laden with bombs) in the hope that a part of the wall would collapse. Then its fighters would try to infiltrate the barracks through the collapsed sections of the wall.

In one of the battles I saw a Libyan (or was it Chadian) armoured vehicle. The markings showed that it was Libyan (and military experts later confirmed that the Libyan armed forces had that kind of armoured vehicle).

These attacks were usually repelled by the army, but on one occasion the terrorists were able to release many prisoners. Human rights groups accused the soldiers of getting angry (because of the attack and because of the soldiers that died in the attack) and killing the remaining prisoners.

Anyway, President Jonathan knew that he had to do something about the situation.

In this interview he said that he heard about complaints from Nigeria and foreign human rights groups, so he approved one billion naira for the military to expand and improve the detention center at Giwa Barracks. Although he said that the human rights abuses were not as serious as some claim, he said that he discovered that the detention center was too full, so he called the chief of defence staff and told him to use army engineers to expand the center.

President Jonathan also said something that I have been posting about in the past week. This also shows you one of the reasons why I don't argue on Nairaland. President Jonathan's supporters on Nairaland would often attack me when I said this back in the day, yet President Jonathan often said the exact same thing, but his supporters would pretend that they did not hear him. That's how I knew that they were not serious at all.

In this interview President Jonathan said that he initially thought that the problem was only caused by Boko Haram, which is a local group, but he said that he discovered that it had gone international. He said that the problem would have been solved a long time ago if it was just the local group (Boko Haram) but the support of international terrorists had given Boko Haram sophisticated weapons and prolonged the crisis. Is that not what I told my friend on Sunday? Is that not what I have been saying all these years?

This article/interview is from 2013.

FG approves N1bn for upgrade of insurgents’ detention camps
https://dailypost.ng/2013/12/08/fg-approves-n1bn-upgrade-insurgents-detention-camps/


More importantly, as I've told you, you cannot fight this type of war with only military means. You can't rely solely on detention and killings on the battle field. You need to identify (A) those that are innocent (B) those that were forced into the terror groups (C) those who joined because of poverty and other such reasons and deradicalise them and reintegrate them into society. This happens in all such wars.

The Goodluck Jonathan Administration realised this a bit late, but they began deradicalisation and reintegration programmes. Psychologists and NGOs from around the world came to Nigeria to help with the programmes. That's the origin of the term "repentant Boko Haram militants".

This article gives a very good explanation of the programmes and it's from March 2015.

Softly, softly: the humanitarian schemes aimed at countering Boko Haram
https://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/softly-softly-humanitarian-schemes-aimed-countering-boko-haram

These programmes were further expanded by the Buhari Administration. I'm going to show you why you no longer hear about those human rights violations.


Kainji

The Kainji Dam was commissioned in 1968 and it was the biggest power plant in Nigeria at the time. I told you that the military governments of the past created the impression that Nigeria was in danger of imminent attack, so they put in place all kinds of defensive measures around our national assets. Therefore an army base and an air force base was situated at Kainji.

The army base once had the Roland Air Defence System and other anti-aircraft missiles and artillery. It also had soldiers to defend the dam from ground attacks.

The air force base had a runway and interceptors to defend the dam from air attacks.

The Buhari Administration decided to build a special detention camp for terrorists at Kainji. The Kainji military bases were far away from the civilian population and they were at the center of Nigeria, while the Boko Haram insurgency was in the North-East. The terrorists would not be able to attack Kainji like the attacked Giwa Barracks.

Furthermore, the government set up committees to sort the detainees at Giwa Barracks. Detainees that were innocent, those that were forced to join Boko Haram and those that were of very low risk and had committed minor crimes were sent for deradicalisation and reintegration programmes. Those that willingly joined Boko Haram or had committed more serious crimes were detained at Giwa Barracks and then the most dangerous, most senior and most serious terrorists were flown to the new Kainji detention center.

The government, through the Ministry of Justice, the National Counter-Terrorism Center and the Office of the National Security Adviser, also created a special anti-terrorism court at Kainji. People that were accused of committing terrorist acts would be tried in the court, which would sit in the military base at Kainji.

The court would solve the problem of security while taking suspects to court and it would address the concerns of human rights groups that suspects were being detained at Giwa Barracks for months without trial.

The judges were flown from Abuja to Kainji by the military.

All these measures are the reason why we no longer hear about human rights abuses at Giwa Barracks.


(I think I'll write about Colonel Mohammed Lawal Abubakar in a separate post).

Do you now see the origin of the term "repentant Boko Haram militants"?

I created this post on November 17th, 2025.

Repentant Boko Haram, profiling and End SARS

This was something that I wanted to talk about during the Sunday conversations, but I never got the chance to do so.

I have written a lot about this issue (and spoke a lot about it offline) when I wrote often about Boko Haram (from 2011 to 2016). Some people did not understand it then, but I believe that it'll be easier to understand now because of the End SARS protests.

End SARS

Forget about the fact that the End SARS protest was hijacked, there were actually legitimate reasons for the protest. I created a lot of threads in support of the protest before I realised that it had been hijacked by people with other motives (and I stopped). One of the biggest reasons for the protest was the issue of profiling.

Raiding

It began with a practice that I would ban if I had the power.

There are places that the Nigerian Police has designated as "black spots". These are places where crime regularly occurs. For example, we all know places where armed robbers often attack motorists. Such places are called "black spots" by the police. For example, there is the "Ijora Olopa Black Spot".

Any time that there is a security threat, or when members of the public complain about insecurity, or when, for example, the "Ember months" are approaching you'll hear police commanders and even politicians say that the police is "raiding black spots". What does this mean?

It means that the police have gone to those black spots and arrested a lot of people. These people might be completely innocent, but the police has gone to the black spots and arrested a large number of people.

The logic is that there is a large number of dangerous people at the black spots (that's why they are black spot) and that the police should round up people from the area and then screen them at their stations. The idea is that the innocent people will be released after screening and those who are a genuine threat will be detained and prosecuted.

Of course we all know that that's not how it really works.

Profiling

The police engage in profiling to assist them in these raids. This is one of the main reasons for the End SARS protests.

I had the ability to listen to police radio in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I heard a commander order his men to go to a black spot and arrest everybody they see wearing black.

Of course it's not illegal to wear black clothes in Nigeria. Of course innocent people that are wearing black clothes (because it's not illegal) will be arrested. But policemen often arrest people for wearing black clothes just because some youth gangs (aka cults) wear all black clothes.

That's an example of the profiling that I was referring to. This kind of officially sanctioned profiling has led to abuses.

Policemen detain young people that have tattoos, dreadlocks or simply because they have long hair (for boys) and accuse them of being cultists (with no evidence whatsoever that they are cultists).

They arrest young people that are with laptops or expensive phones and accuse them of being fraudsters (aka Yahoo boys).

And when policemen see that their bosses can order them to arrest people simply because they possess such things, then they develop the courage to arrest people for no reason at all.

This is the origin of the recent phenomenon in which policemen kidnap people because they possess such things and then demand money before they release them. This is one of the reasons for the End SARS protests.

Emotions

But policemen do not only detain people in order to extort money from them. They also detain people for emotional reasons. This is one of the reasons why I have always advocated for psychological evaluation of security agents.

Policemen undertake and extremely difficult job in very stressful conditions. They regularly get shot at by criminals, they lose close friends (colleagues) to criminals, they risk death everyday, etc. This could create a situation in which an emotionally charged policeman wants revenge.

I told you about the video that went viral in 2009. For whatever reason, those policemen wanted revenge and they were not prepared to go through the judicial system and let it verify if the suspect was really a member of Boko Haram and if he really committed the offences that he was accused of. They shot him dead right there on the street.

So security agents could take out their anger on people that they have profiled to be criminals, whether or not they are actually criminals.

Ahmed Salkida

Ahmed Silka is a journalist and he is one of the foremost authorities on Boko Haram. This is because he knew Mohammed Yusuf (the founder of Boko Haram) very well.

Salkida often debated with Mohammed Yusuf (he told Yusuf directly that what he was doing was bad and that it was against Islam).

At a point Yusuf told Salkida that he wanted to establish a magazine and he said that he wanted Salkida to be the editor of the magazine. Salkida gave him one condition, which was that he would be free to criticise Boko Haram and its ideology in the magazine. (I posted Ahmad Salkida's full article on Nairaland sometime around 2013). At the end of the day Mohammed Yusuf did not go through with the idea.

As a journalist, Ahmad Salkida was able to freely interview both Boko Haram members and government officials. This changed in 2009 when President Yar'Adua ordered a crackdown on Boko Haram.

Ahmed Salkida went to Government House, Maiduguri as usual, but the security operatives there tricked him, detained him and tortured him. They accused him of being a member of Boko Haram.

It took the intervention of the Nigerian Union of Journalists and senior government and media officials that knew him before Ahmed Salkida was released. He eventually fled to the UAE where he now lives.

The Goodluck Jonathan Administration invited Ahmed Salkida back to Nigeria to help to mediate with Boko Haram. In fact, there were reports that Salkida was already involved in the mediation, but he debunked those reports.

Salkida said that he would come back to Nigeria and mediate (he said that he would happily do anything for peace) if the government could guaranty his safety.

Salkida was eventually brought back to Nigeria to help secure the release of the Chibok girls. He was able to get a proof of life video from the sect. He brokered a deal that would lead to the release of most of the Chibok girls, but the deal broke down before they could be released.

Salkida later said that some people within the Boko Haram sect and within the government were causing disagreements that were sabotaging his peace efforts. He declared that he did not think that his life was safe. He eventually returned to the UAE.

Ahmed Salkida had many clashes with the Buhari Administration. He accused the Buhari Administration of not continuing the peace moves that the Jonathan Administration started. Salkida said that Buhari did not really know what was happening. The military accused Salkida of having suspicious links with Boko Haram (they said that he always got Shekau's videos before anybody else). They declared him wanted. Some Buharists claimed that Ahmed Salkida wanted glory. They said that Goodluck Jonathan used him as a negotiator and that he was angry because Buhari refused to use him as a negotiator and the military was winning the war against Boko Haram without him.

Ahmed Salkida later established his own media outlet called Human Angle.

Profiling

I have given you the background of Ahmed Salkida because he was the first person that wrote about this issue. Many governments and organisations around the world later wrote about the same issue and people from Borno that I know also told me about the issue.

The Joint Task Force in Borno also profiled people just the same way that Nigerian policemen profile people.

Some believe that Prophet Muhammad said that men should not wear clothes that extend beyond the ankles because it is a form of showing off.

Because of this many people do not wear trousers that extend beyond the ankles (I constantly have to tell my tailors the length that I want my trousers to be, otherwise they'll make it too short).

From 2009 to 2016 the security services used this to profile people in north-eastern Nigeria. You could be picked up if your trousers were too short. You would be accused of being a member of Boko Haram and detained indefinitely.

Similarly, you could be picked up, accused of being a member of Boko Haram and detained indefinitely if you had long beards.

This was a huge problem. Whenever Boko Haram killed a popular soldier, angry troops would go into town and roundup everybody that they thought was Boko Haram (that is, people whose trousers were too short or beards were too long) and detain them at the detention center at Giwa Barracks.

Many people disappeared and theor families were searching for them. People were tortured, etc.

In my view, it was a huge problem because of the risk of turning the population against the Nigerian Military.

It was a problem in other ways too.

Ahmed Salkida was not the only person that reported about these abuses. Foreign NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reported about it. Foreign news outlets also reported about it. I know someone from Borno and back then he was complaining about an elderly relative (I think it was an uncle) that was missing and they suspected that he had been detained by the military (the old man was eventually released after some months).

Leahy Law

Patrick Leahy is a United States senator. He was the main sponsor of what is called the Leahy Law.

That law orders the United States Department of State (foreign ministry) and other agencies of the US Government to compile information on military units that are engaged in torture and other human rights abuses.

The law also bans the US Government from providing money, equipment, training or any other kind of assistance to those military units. In fact the law imposes sanctions on those units.


Brazil - Tucano, Israel - Cobra

The Nigerian military was set up to fight conventional wars, it was not set up for asymmetric warfare. It needed equipment for counter insurgency operations, especially slow moving aircraft that had great loiter time for ground attack operations.

The Goodluck Jonathan Administration tried to buy Tucano war planes from Embraer of Brazil and Cobra helicopters from Israel. The US Government blocked both sales. Supporters of Goodluck Jonathan were livid. What was the US' business with our dealings with Brazil and Israel?

(This is one of the reasons that supporters of Goodluck Jonathan say that Barrack Obama was opposed to Goodluck Jonathan).

Actually, it all had to do with the Leahy Law.

Firstly, Cobra attack helicopters are made in the US and, as with most arms suppliers, the US has a say in who they are eventually sold to. I'll give you an example with Nigeria.

NNS Aradu was built for Nigeria by a German shipyard. I had a friend in the Navy who told me (in the 1980s) that the West Germans stated in the contract that we could not sell NNS Aradu to the Soviet Union. They stated that they would not sell even a rifle to Nigeria ever again if we sold the Aradu to the Soviet Union.

I believe it was because the Aradu was the first of the MEKO 360 ships and the Germans did not want the Soviets to get the MEKO technology.

So the United States sold Cobra helicopters to Israel and they had a say over who the Israelis eventually sold it to. The fact that the helicopters had US technology in them made them subject to the restrictions in the Leahy law. There's another reason which you'll see in the case of the Tucanos.

Embraer is a major Brazilian aircraft company and we wanted to buy the Tucano from them, but the US blocked the deal. Why and how?

Well, it's just like the sanctions that Nigeria imposed on South Africa during the apartheid era. Those sanctions had third party implication. It meant that Nigeria did not conduct business with any company or entity that conducted business with South Africa.

Embraer was negotiating a deal to sell Super Tucano aircraft to the US Air Force and US Marines. In fact, they had set up a factory in America to produce the aircraft and US Air Force officials had made some changes to the Tucano to produce the Super Tucano. That deal would have been cancelled if Embraer sold Tucano planes to Nigeria. Of course Embraer would make more money from the US than they would make from Nigeria and so they refused to deal with the Nigerian Government.

South African debacle

The GEJ Administration tried to get around the ban by loading a plane with cash and trying to buy arms on the black market, but the plane was detained in South Africa.

The reason for the sanctions

The sanctions were not against Nigeria in general or the Nigerian military. They were specifically against the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the North-East. They were imposed because of reports that JTF troops had detained people at random, they had detained people without trial for long periods of time, they had tortured people, etc. In fact, so many people had been detained that the detention facilities at Giwa Barracks were too full.


Trump

These sanctions were in place during the Jonathan Era and the beginning of the Buhari Era. They were the reason why some supporters of Goodluck Jonathan said that Barrack Obama was against GEJ. They led to some very interesting exchanges on social media.

Senator Leahy, who originally sponsored the law, condemned the Nigerian military. His supporters expressed surprise that the Nigerian Government and its supporters were against the Leahy Law. They said that the law was meant to guaranty human rights and everybody should support it.

Senator Leahy had an amazing exchange with Femi Fani-Kayode. The senator insulted the Nigerian Army and Femi Fani-Kayode insulted him. In fact, FFK wrote an article about Patrick Leahy.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS (SEASON ONE)
https://femifanikayode.org/senator-patrick-leahy-with-friends-like-this/

However, Donald Trump became president of the US and he often boasts that he is capable of making any deal work. He began working on a deal that would allow Nigeria to get the Super Tucanos. These were the elements of the deal that made it work.

1) The Super Tucanos that Nigeria would buy would be made in the United States, not Brazil. (This follows Donald Trump's idea that he is making money for the US and doing deals to benefit the US).

2) The aircraft can only be used in certain places (if I remember correctly, the aircraft can only be used in the North-East and North-West). This is to satisfy people like Patrick Leahy. There are other conditions that were put in place to ensure that the planes are only used against Boko Haram.

3) The deal includes training, ammunition and the upgrade of the air force base in Kainji where the Super Tucanos are based.

That was how Nigeria was able to get the Super Tucanos. However, we have still not got the helicopters.

The helicopter request was upgraded from Cobra helicopters to Vipers. Negotiations are still ongoing (the former chief of air staff was in the US a few months ago to continue negotiations for the helicopters).

Continued below

delpee:
Very informative reports. Thanks.

My pleasure.

I wrote this on December 10th, 2025.

I'm going to use my childhood understanding to explain the difference between conventional warfare and asymmetric warfare.


1) Conventional:

This seemed kind of funny to me when I was a kid.

You'd read about some battles that were fought in ancient times and they seemed funny. Both armies would agree to meet on a field at a specific time and date. You would have two armies fighting against each other and civilians (especially women and children) would not be involved. There were rules of chivalry, etc.

Let's bring it to modern times. Conventional warfare is war between two armies in which, their positions (location) are known, their identities are known (they wear uniforms), etc. It's all about which army is stronger.

2) Asymmetric warfare:

Asymmetry means unequal. In asymmetric warfare, a smaller or weaker force is trying to fight a big and proper army. The smaller or weaker force knows that it cannot beat the bigger army in a face to face fight, so it uses unconventional methods. These unconventional methods include.

A) No uniforms:

There is no way of identifying the enemy. The enemy might be standing beside you but you won't know. The weaker force can easily blend into the civilian population and escape.

Everybody knows that Nigeria defeated the rebels in Sierra Leone, but do you know that there was one occasion that the rebels defeated the Nigerian Army? That's because the rebels used asymmetric warfare.

The Nigerian Army had total control of Freetown. I listened to an angry Nigerian commander on the BBC and although many years have passed, I'm going to do my best to quote him.

He said that he had warned his men about the civilians that often came into Freetown from a certain location. He told them that it was dangerous to allow people come in from there. But his men didn't listen because they thought that they were women and children and refugees. So what happened.

The RUF rebels had struck a deal with some members of the Sierra Leonean Army. Unarmed RUF rebels came into Freetown as refugees. Then, one day, some members of the Sierra Leonean Army, led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, announced a coup and they were backed by RUF rebels that had snuck into the capital. They were able to expel the Nigerians from Freetown and encircle them at Lungi.

Freetown Airport is on Lungi Island and Nigerian Ecomog troops were restricted to Lungi and encircled.

I have posted many videos, pictures, etc of what happened.

In one of the videos that I posted, we saw rebels looking at NNS Ambe. They were trying not to show it, but they were afraid because they thought that it was NNS Aradu. It was NNS Ambe, a landing ship tank (LST), kind of like the C130 of the navy and it was there in case the Nigerians needed to evacuate, but the rebels thought that it came to attack them.

Anyway, that was the finest hour of Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe. He personally led the attack from the front. He was injured during the attack, but he refused to allow medics treat his wounds and told them to take care of other soldiers. Brigadier Khobe and his Nigerian Ecomog troops recaptured Freetown (the rebels could not defeat the Nigerians in conventional war) butthose wounds would get worse and eventually lead to his death months later (he died at St Nicholas Hospital, Lagos).

If Boko Haram, ISWAP or whatever they call themselves were to wear uniforms, gather at specific camps, etc like a regular army, then it won't take the Nigerian Army up to 6 months to defeat them.

B) No specific location:

I told you how the Nigerian Army defeated Boko Haram due to the surge during the Jonathan and Buhari era, yet Boko Haram fighters fled to Lagos (even Lekki here), Sokoto, Plateau and other places. Then, whenever they wanted, they would launch attacks in various parts of Nigeria. How do you fight such a scattered organisation?

I told you that the people of Kano hated Boko Haram, yet Abubakar Shekau was able to hide in Kano for a long time. Nobody knew who he was, he used a fake name and he was able to send message to fighters many miles away in Borno and the attacks were taking place in Borno while he was in Kano. It was only when the heat got too hot on Kano that he fled to Sambisa Forest.


C) Soft targets:

There are laws and rules that govern conventional warfare. You don't attack certain targets because it would be a war crime.

But these terrorists can attack anywhere. They pick the softest targets (bus stops, schools, churches, mosques, etc) that nobody would expect and you cannot defend against these attacks.

They also engage in hit and run attacks, which means that they will attack a place and run before the military arrive.

Dangers

One of the big dangers of asymmetric warfare is war crimes. I have written about this in both the Nigerian and American contexts.

It is very difficult to fight against such enemies and it could make conventional soldiers to do some things that they are not supposed to do.

For example, soldiers could kill civilians out of frustration (because the terrorists often hide among civilians).

Soldiers and policemen might end up profiling people and innocent people will suffer, etc.

I wrote this on June 1st, 2021.

Aha! Time to look at the other side of the argument

I have often examined one side of the argument, but I'm not sure that I've examined the other side of the argument on this thread (maybe I have, but I can't remember).

You see, there's a problem in the war in the North-East and the Nigerian Air Force has proposed a solution (the Super Tucano) and the Nigerian Army has proposed a solution. I have often examined the solution that was proposed by the Air Force, now let's look at the Army's idea.

But first, before we look at the solution, we need to understand the problem. I will illustrate the problem by using 2 old videos that I have previously posted on this thread.



Video 1) US troops were operating in a valley in Afghanistan when they were pinned down by 3 snipers on the mountain. We can actually hear the sniper's bullet as it whizzes past. The American soldiers try to take out the snipers, but it is difficult because the snipers are on a vantage position.

The troops manage to injure one of the snipers, but are unable to do real damage (they are actually listening to the snipers' radios).

The ground troops had to call in air support. What I want you to note is the time it took the jet to get there. I want you to note the time period between when the ground troops called for air support and when the jet arrived to bomb the snipers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDvugsSjI6s



Video 2) I've posted this video a long time ago and I posted it again recently. The video shows US forces mistakenly killing some Iraqi journalists and then also killing and injuring the people that came to help them. What I want you to note in this video is the loiter time of the aircraft.

Note that the aircraft was able to slowly fly around the mission area in a circle to identify moving targets, assess the result of its action and take out any targets that escaped its initial attack. Also note that, unlike the jet in the first video, this aircraft was able to remain over the battlefield for a long time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrCCmTY1Eo


Now here's the problem:

Ground troops in the North-East complain that it takes too long for the aircraft to show up when they request for air support. The Air Force also complains that their jets are too fast to properly engage the moving targets on the ground, they need to be refuelled often and so the jets can't stay over the battlefield for too long and the reason that it takes so long for the aircraft to arrive the battlefield is because the jets have to fly from proper air bases (Maiduguri or Yola Air Bases), while the helicopters are too slow to get there from far away Maiduguri and Yola.

I remember quite well that we used the Alphas as fighter-bombers in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but that was a different kind of warfare. The Alphas were bombing static targets like bases and so on in Liberia, while in the North-East we have to deal with small bands of moving guerrillas and insurgents.

The Air Force's solution to this problem is the Super Tucano. It's a turbo prop so it can land and take off almost anywhere (it doesn't even need a proper runway), it's a turbo prop, so it doesn't use as much fuel as the jets and therefore it can loiter over the mission area for a longer time and it can fly slower and attack the targets on the ground, assess the damage and attack again if necessary. It's also faster than the helicopters and can get to the mission area quicker.

That's the Air Force's solution. Here's the Army's idea.

The Army's idea met with enormous criticism and a massive debate. There are many people that agree with the idea and many people who are opposed. I'll give you both sides of the argument beginning with the Army's idea.


The Army wants to have. . .its own air wing.

The Nigerian Army believes that the solution to the problem is to have its own air wing filled with a fleet of helicopters. It believes that those helicopters should stay at the battlefront with the ground troops and that they should be able to provide support to the ground troops when needed.

The Army believes that having its own air wing will solve another problem, apart from the problems that I listed above. The ground troops sometimes need to be medically evacuated when they are injured. However, it often takes the medivac aircraft a long time to arrive and the Army believes that it would be better if these helicopters are at the battlefront with the ground troops (the troops would get the much needed emergency medical attention very quickly).

These helicopters, the army believes, will also be very useful for reconnaissance missions.


That's the Army's argument. What do the critics say?

1) The critics say that buying helicopters for the Army will be like buying helicopters for Boko Haram. They say that the Army wants the helicopters to be at the battlefront with the ground troops, but what happens if their positions are overrun by Boko Haram? That means that Boko Haram would now have helicopters!!!


2) The critics say that there is no need for an Army Air Wing. They say that the Nigerian Air Force already exists and that it is the job of the Air Force to provide air support. They say that creating an Army air wing will amount to duplication of functions.

3) I'm sure you've predicted this argument . Following from the earlier point, critics believe that the only reason that the Army wants its own air wing is to enable soldiers to steal money.

4) Some critics say that the Super Tucanos will solve the problems and therefore there is no need for an Army air wing.


What do you think?

I created this post on November 14th, 2025.

WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHY? and HOW?

People have always been asking who, what, why, when and how. It has puzzled me because I can easily see the answers.

In fact, I consider people that ask these questions to be unserious people. They don't really want to know the answers, they just want to attack people that they hate.

People ask who funds the terrorists in the north? How do they get such sophisticated weapons? Why can't the Nigerian Armed Forces, which easily defeated Maitatsine, Liberian, Sierra Leonean and Biafran rebels and which has consistently been praised during UN operations, easily defeat the terrorists in the north? What exactly do the terrorists in the north want? Etc.

You see, the sponsors of the insurrection in Nigeria have always been known. They've been known from the beginning.

However, I realise that I have not written about them since 2016, so here is a summary.

1) Al-Qaeda:

Osama Bin-Ladin came from a wealthy Saudi family. His father owned a large construction company and had close ties to the Saudi Royal Family.

Osama attended many schools in the 1970s, but he left school in 1979 to go and fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He was one of the Muslim fighters that came from all over the world to fight against the Soviets. They received a lot of support from the CIA and that supported was routed through the Pakistani intelligence services.

Bin Ladin had a lot of money, so he created his own group that fought against the Soviets.

In 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin Ladin offered to use his fighters to defend Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis turned to the US coalition instead.

Osama Bin Ladin was very angry that there were US troops in Saudi Arabia. He felt that it was a desecration of the Holy Land. The United States military set up barracks in Saudi Arabia (to fight the Iraqis) and Osama felt that they were living in sin in the Holy Land. He therefore dedicated his fighters/organisation to fighting against the US and expelling them from Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. This was the incident that brought Al-Qaeda to public attention. They parked a bomb-laden Toyota mini-bus in the underground parking lot of the World Trade Center and set off the bombs.

I have told you that I woke up one day in 1998 to hear the crazy news that American embassies in Africa had been bombed. Al-Qaeda set off massive bombs in the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

In response the Clinton Administration bombed targets in Sudan and Afghanistan and gave Sudan a deadline to expel Osama Bin Ladin (it was later discovered that Sudan had already expelled him and the target that was bombed in Sudan was a civilian factory and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. The owner of the factory sued the US Government and won).

In 2000 Al-Qaeda put bombs on a speed boat and used it to ram an American warship, the USS Cole, in a port in Yemen.

Of course everybody knows about the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

In 2003 Osama Bin Ladin made a broadcast in which he said that Muslims were being killed in certain countries and he called on Muslims to rise up against the governments of those countries. Nigeria was one of the countries that he listed (I have posted his 2003 message on Nairaland in the post, but I'm too lazy to go and look for it). Everybody thought that he was mad (he obviously was mad).

In 2009 Al-Jazeera broadcast videos of the killing of Boko Haram suspects in Nigeria. Osama Bin Ladin made another broadcast calling on Muslims in Nigeria to rise up against their government.

It looked like Boko Haram was finished after the Nigerian Government cracked down on them in 2009, but Al-Qaeda offered them money, weapons and training. Shekau, the new leader of Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the terror group began an even worse series of attacks in 2010/2011.

2) ISIS:

Sadam Hussein was a member of the Bath Party, a socialist party that was popular in Iraq and Syria. Remember that I told you that the left does not emphasise religion? Well, religion was not important to Saddam Hussein. In fact, there was a funny and embarrassing incident that occurred when Saddam had to pray in public. He did not know the prayers (remember, Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day).

That's why you know that US officials were talking nonsense when they claimed that Saddam had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. Osama Bin Ladin and his crew hated Saddam. Many Muslim extremists believed that Saddam was used by the US to attack Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and they hated Saddam.

But anyway, the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and this brought in many foreign Muslim fighters that came to fight the Americans.

Some Iraqi Muslims also became militant and took up arms to fight the Americans. One of them was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He formed the Islamic State (IS). The goal of the Islamic State was to form a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. The group believes that it represents all Muslims, but in actual fact most Muslims reject them.

It has many branches and it us most known by the acronym of one of its branches Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

There was a split in Boko Haram. The son of Mohammed Yusuf, Habib Yusuf (aka Abu Musab al-Barnawi), said that Abbakar Shekau had become too extreme. He said that Shekau was killing Muslims and kidnapping children and that this was wrong. He said that Boko Haram's actions were unislamic.

Abu Musab al-Barnawi created a new group and pledged allegiance to IS. His new group was called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). They get money, training, equipment and other forms of support from other Islamic State branches around the world.

I have been writing since 2011 that the terrorists in northern Nigeria are not trying to break away from Nigeria (as some thought back then), rather they are trying to take over the whole of West Africa (including southern Nigeria) in order to make it part of a global caliphate. Take note of the names of the organisations that I will mention in this post.

ISWAP fought against both Boko Haram and the Nigerian Army. Indeed, at the beginning, ISWAP almost destroyed Boko Haram.

ISWAP fighters cornered Abubakar Shekau (the leader of Boko Haram) and Shekau killed himself in order to evade capture. Many Boko Haram fighters switched allegiance to ISWAP.

The only thing that prevented Boko Haram from totally collapsing was the fact that it was receiving support from Al-Qaeda.

The other groups in this list are based in Africa.

3) AQIM:

This was one of those issues that I talked about quite often in the 1990s.

You see, the United States of America says that it is a great democracy and that it supports democracy all over the world, so why did this happen? (That's the question that I often asked people in the 1990s).

Africa was democratising in the 1990s. Many African countries that were either military dictatorships or civilian one-party states were embracing multi-party democracy. Algerian was one of such countries.

Like the others, Algeria had a major election in 1992. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win the election and I remember clearly that the United States and the Algerian Government did everything to frustrate the FIS.

It didn't work and Algerians overwhelmingly voted for the FIS. Then, suddenly, there was a (US-backed) military coup. The new military leaders imprisoned President Chadli Bendjedid (a former military officer who had been president since 1979) and banned the FIS.

(Imagine that! The US that is a beacon of democracy now supporting a military coup).

Obviously the coup was staged to prevent the Islamic party from gaining power via the ballot box. As a result, many armed Islamic groups sprang up.

Algeria was a mess in the 1990s. There were constant bomb explosions, fighting, etc. It kind of seemed like it faded out in the early 2000s, but then it reappeared during the War on Terror.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) evolved from one of those groups that fought the Algerian Government in the 1990s.

The Maghreb is basically the north-west region of Africa. It includes Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Western Sahara (aka Sahrawi Republic). AQIM is mostly active in Algeria, Libya and Mauritania.

Remember what I said about a global caliphate? AQIM leads Al-Qaeda's attempt to conquer the whole of north-west Africa.

AQIM has focused on kidnapping for ransom as a means of raising funds and is estimated to have raised more than $50 million in the last decade. This organisation is one of the main sources of support for terrorist groups in Africa. They provide support to Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabab in Somalia and JNIM in Mali (in fact, JNIM is an offshoot of AQIM). They provide money, weapons and training to these groups.

Since 2011 there have often been reports of "white men" being seen assisting Boko Haram militants and bandits in northern Nigeria. I have a strong suspicion that these "white men" are AQIM militants.


4) Al-Shabaab

This section basically contains summaries of many of my old posts. You can search for the original posts if you want more information.

I told you that East Africa was one of the venues of the proxy wars between the East and West blocks (Soviet Union vs the United States). Somalia was ruled by a dictator called General Mohammed Siad Barre. Somalia and Barre were backed by the United States/CIA.

Ethiopia was ruled by a dictator called Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. Ethiopia and Mengistu were backed by the Soviet Union/KGB.

I've posted videos (on this thread) of Barre visiting Washington and meeting Reagan. I've also posted videos of Mengistu visiting Moscow and meeting with Brezhnev. I posted videos of Barre threatening Ethiopia, the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and I posted videos of Mengistu threatening Somalia, the United States and NATO).

Somalia and Ethiopia had direct skirmishes, but most of the conflict was prosecuted using proxies. Somalia supported Ethiopian rebels and Ethiopia supported Somalian rebels.

The Cold War came to an end and the two superpowers stopped supporting their proxies. Siad Barre fled to Lagos when rebels were marching on his presidential palace and Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe when rebels were marching on his presidential palace.

The Ethiopians were able to manage the situation bettter than the Somalians..Eritrea peacefully broke away from Ethiopia after Mengistu fled. There have been a few wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea since 1991 and there have civil wars within Ethiopia, but the country has remained relatively stable.

Somalia has fared worse. There has been no country-wide stable government in Somalia since Barre fled in 1991.

As I told you, all the rebel groups that chased Barre away, started fighting against each other as soon as Barre left. Somalia became a country of warlords with each warlord controlling a section of the country.

I created several posts (and took over an entire thread) about the United Nations intervention in Somalia in the early and mid-1990s. This intervention ended in disaster when the UN and most especially the United States became embroiled in a war with one of the most powerful warlords Mohammed Farah Aideed. Firstly Pakistani troops were killed by Aideed's forces. US troops tried to capture Aideed, but this resulted in several US soldiers being killed and their bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

This frightened the Clinton Administration which had promised (during the election campaign) that it would keep out of foreign wars. This was one of the reasons why they did not intervene in the genocide in Rwanda.

So Somalia became a lawless country and remained so throughout the 1990s, despite the efforts of the UN to restore order. Most of the UN backed governments had to operate from outside the country or from small parts of Mogadishu.

The Sharia courts in Somalia decided that the country was too unstable and unsafe. They formed an alliance, set up a military force and were able to take control of most of the country. This was in the early 2000s.


As I said earlier, there were several UN backed or internationally recognjsed governments of Somalia, but these governments either operated from outside Somalia or they only controlled small parts of Mogadishu.

Ethiopia (backed by the United States) decided to invade Somalia to install the Transition Federal Government all over the country.

The Ethiopians (supported by a small covert force of American soldiers) was able to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union and take over the country, but this immediately led to an insurgency. Jihadist groups began a massive terror campaign against the Ethiopians. The biggest of these groups was Al-Shabaab, which was created by some former fighters of the Islamic Courts Union and others.

Al-Shabaab was able to recapture much of the country from the Ethiopians and Americans. They inflicted severe losses of the Ethiopians through their bombing and terror campaign and the Ethiopians pulled out of Somalia in 2009. The Ethiopian presence in Somalia lasted from 2006 till 2009.

I have written that various international organisations and countries have tried to restore peace in Somalia. Well, it was time for the African Union to take up that role. The AU created the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a peacekeeping force that was to go into Somalia, take over from the Ethiopians and help the government to restore peace. AMISOM soldiers came from East and Central African countries (like Uganda and Burundi) and Nigeria. Al Shabaab began targetting the African countries that contributed troops to AMISOM. There were bomb attacks in Kampala, Uganda and Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. Al-Shabaab also began assisting Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Kenyan troops invaded Somalia in order to fight Al-Shabaab. They later integrated their troops into AMISOM. This led to one of the most infamous terrorist attacks in Africa. We monitores that terror attack live on Nairaland.

The Westgate Mall is one of the biggest shopping malls in Nairobi, Kenya. Al-Shabaab militants crossed into Kenya and attacked the mall. We could see videos and pictures that were taken by shoppers that were trapped inside the mall. The first people to respond to the attack were armed volunteers who lived in the neighbourhood.

People from all over Africa, especially Kenya, were on that Nairaland thread. Unfortunately the Somali super troll, Ayanle, was also on the thread

The issue with Ayanle (and his hundred accounts) was that he believed that Somalis were not black and that they were of a race that was superior to blacks (whom he called Bantus). So he would attack threads and completely derail them with his belief that Somalis were superior to blacks. He was a very virulent troll and nobody could stop him (he's probably the worst troll in Nairaland's history).

However, we stopped him on that day.

I was angry. People had just died, Kenyans on the thread werw worried and this Ayanle character was trolling them. I got the moderator to attack Ayanle. Ayanle went through many accounts (that's why you'll see many blank pages), but I was determined. After a while the moderator was also very determined and I didn't have to do anything again. For the first time in Nairaland's history, Ayanle was worn out. He stopped attacking the thread.

90 pages of live monitoring of the Westgate Mall attack by people from all over Africa.

Kenya Mall Under Attack From Islamic Terrorists (Pictures) 
https://www.nairaland.com/1448459/kenya-mall-under-attack-islamic


Al-Shabaab has received money, training and other forms of support from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Al-Shabaab has also provided training and other forms of support to Boko Haram. Boko Haram militants have been to Somalia to learn from and train with Al-Shabaab.

5) JNIM

I have told you about how the Malian jihadist group, Ansar Dine, took over large swathes of territory and this led to an international force being deployed to Mali to repel them. Boko Haram fighters were seen in Mali, fighting side by side with Ansar Dine militants. They kidnapped and ambassador in Mali and engaged in other terror attacks. They could be distinguished from other fighters because they spoke Hausa, rather than the local language.

You might also remember the 2016 attack on a hotel in Burkina Faso. An international conference was taking place there and rumours spread that Aliko Dangote was trapped in the hotel. However, Dangote denied that he was in the hotel and said that he could not travel to the conference. The attack was carried out by the Sahelian branch of AQIM.

Ansar Dine, the Sahelian branch of AQIM and other jihadist groups merged and created Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).

JNIM has become one of the most powerful terrorist groups in West Africa. They have imposed a blockade of Mali and people cannot get petrol because of them.

There was a report last week (I don't know if it is true) that elements of JNIM were in Nigeria.


6) Other sources.

I have told you a lot about these other sources.

I told you that one of the reasons why Boko Haram hates the Navy Base on Lake Chad is because it affects their revenue. Lake Chad is a huge source of fish and Boko Haram taxes the fisherfolk. You must pay Boko Haram before you can fish. However, the Nigerian Military disrupts this source of funds and Boko Haram does not like it.

I told you about the time that Boko Haram invaded the navy base. They captured some naval ratings and executed them while filming the execution (they released the video to journalists. The Army came a few days later and chased them away.

In fact, in the early days, Boko Haram also engaged in bank robberies in order to raise cash.

They've also made money from kidbapping people and they also toll roads (you have to pay them before you can pass). They also tax people in areas that they capture.


Propaganda and spin

So ignore the propaganda and spin, Boko Haram was not funded by Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari, Sultan of Sokoto, APC, PDP, northern elders, etc. In fact, Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in the north would kill these people if they catch them. These things that I wrote above are the real sources of funds and weapons of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terrorists in Northern Nigeria.

I created this post on May 14th, 2025.

And the ultimate problem and the ultimate solution to the problem in the North-East is still connected to the economic issues that we've been discussing in the past few years.

You see, at one point during the Jonathan Era, Boko Haram controlled local governments in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States and they regularly exploded bombs and carried out attacks across the north, even in Abuja.

Then the government initiated a surge in 2013. This was the same time that it declared a state of emergency and it was around the same time that the US began a surge in Iraq.

A surge means that they increased the number of troops and equipment in the North-East.

This stabilised things a bit.

You see, I had been calling for a surge and I was happy that there was a surge, but I was not happy that the government took a defensive posture. The government tried to protect facilities, civilians, etc, but I wanted them to go on the offensive and hunt Boko Haram.

That Buhari Government went on the offensive and overran Boko Haram's headquarters in the Sambisa Forrest. The pressure was so great that Boko Haram stopped exploding bombs in Abuja, etc.

Now I need to write about tactics.

Boko Haram cannot win a full frontal war against the Nigerian Military, so they've been using certain tactics.

1) Toyota War:

(This is a very short summary).

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi invaded Chad and wanted to destroy Chadian president Hissene Habre.

The Libyan Army was vastly superior to the Chadian Army. They had more tanks, more men and better equipment. Yet the Chadians basically destroyed the Libyans. How?

The Chadians effectively used Toyota Hilux and Toyota Land Cruiser pickup trucks to defeat the Libyans (I've told you about the 70 Series Land Cruiser trucks and the Nigerian Army).

Those pickups were faster and more mobile than the heavy tanks and they could easily hit the Libyans and run.


Boko Haram

This is precisely what Boko Haram does. They took the government by surprise at the beginning of the war.

Then Goodluck Jonathan ordered a surge and they adopted Toyota War tactics. They would hit locations on motorcycles and run away before the army got there. They chose the place that they would attack, they had motorcycles and Vllkswagen Golf cars. They hit soft targets. This is why I wanted the government to go on the offensive.

You see, people criticised Goodluck Jonathan at that time, but they didn't understand what was happening. You can not defend against those sort of attacks. No matter who you are, nobody can defend against those sort of attacks. Boko Haram were hitting soft targets!

They attacked bus stops and parks, are you going to put soldiers at every bus stop and park? They attacked schools, are you going to put soldiers in every school? OK, they attacked students that were waiting outside a school to see their results that were pasted on the school wall, are you going to put soldiers on every street?

But this was the reason I wanted the government to go on the offensive. You cannot defend against that kind of asymmetric warfare.

Widening the war

This is so obvious that I wonder why people can't see it.

The Buhari Administration went on the offensive. They took over Camp Zero in Sambisa Forest! Camp Zero was the headquarters of Boko Haram. In fact, to show how successful they were, they held a conference at Camp Zero and President Buhari, General Olonishakin and Governor Shettima were present. That was the day that Governor Shettima and General Irabor impressed me with their speeches.

But Boko Haram adapted again. They used the tactic that combatants always use when they are under pressure.

At first, temporarily, they resorted to sending kidnapped girls (that had been strapped with bombs) to targets and then they detonated the bombs remotely. But this was a short term measure.

Biafra was under a lot of pressure due to Benjamin Adekunle's amphibious landings. They had to do something in response and that's why they invaded the Mid-West, thereby widening the war.

Boko Haram's main base was in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, but the Buhari Administration was putting a lot of pressure on them, so they had to do something.

So they widened the war.

The terrorists in the North-East blended into the civilian population and fled. Some of them were arrested in Lekki, Lagos. They fled, but they didn't give up. They made agreements with bands of criminals and nomadic Fulani in the North-West. That's why, as the violence was dying down in the North-East, it was increasing in the North-West. Some of the people that were responsible for attacks in the North-West and North-Central were not herders and neither were they Fulani. They were terrorists from the North-East who had escaped and who were trying to incite local populations in the rest of the North.

2) Economics:

Now here is the problem that the Nigerian Army is facing at the moment.

There was a surge during the Jonathan Era and troops were deployed all over. But the problem is that we don't have enough troops!

Nigeria had the largest standing army in Africa after the Civil War. We had 200,000 men under arms after the war. I remember that people often boasted about this. . .but it was a problem.

Who would pay the salaries and allowances of all these people? Although we were in an oil boom, we could not afford to have so many soldiers, so Ibrahim Babangida was given the task of coming up with ideas to reduce the size of the Army.

It's not an easy task. These men have been trained to kill and you can't just throw them out onto the streets. Besides, some of them might be angry that they've lost their jobs and as I said, they have been trained to kill.

Ibrahim Babangida, the same person that worked to reduce the size of the army, became president in 1985. At that time our army had 100,000 soldiers. It was still too much and so he reduced it again as part of SAP.

So here's the problem.

The theater of war is gigantic. Some of those places are bigger than entire countries. I remember that they used to say that the Sambisa Forest is bigger than Belgium.

Soldiers were initially deployed all over the area during the Jonathan Era. This gave Boko Haram an opportunity to gain publicity. There were soldiers in small towns and villages. Very small number of soldiers and equipment were deployed to protect small towns and villages. So Boko Haram would gather in force and attack these small towns and villages and make a lot of publicity out of it.

Terrorism is about putting fear in the minds of people and so Boko Haram wanted Nigerians to believe that their army couldn't protect them, that's why it would attack these small bases in small towns and flee before the main force arrived, then it would share videos online. And Nigerians helped them to spread the propaganda.

The military changed tactic during the Buhari Era. They withdrew from these small villages and established super camps. These were large and well armed and well fortified military bases. They ensured that Boko Haram could no longer easily kill soldiers, but who protects the villager in the small village?

Troops have been deployed to small villages again and Boko Haram has started attacking them again.

You see, we need to recruit a lot of soldiers and deploy them in force all over the North, but where will the money come from?

JuanDeDios:
These and other related facts have always been in the open. People just refuse to pay attention. It's the twenty-first century and human rights is not a footnote.

In fact the Nigerian military committed a lot of attrocities. I wrote about them in another post. These two posts are part of a long series of posts which I might quote here when I finish my workout.

Anyway, just as I did with the Tucano thread, I'll be back to bombard this thread with information after my workout.

🤣 These people have never heard of the Toyota War, the Vietnam War, etc.

They have no idea what COIN warfare or asymmetric warfare is about.

They remind me of the people that were arguing with me on Nairaland that the Super Tucano was a World War 2 aircraft (because it has propellers).

Tenses:
You are a Conspiracy theorist.

Nobody cares what you think. It's totally unimportant.

I wrote this in November 2025.


Donald Trump and Nigeria.

When Donald Trump was elected, some ig norant people believed that he would he opposed to President Buhari. Some of these people wrote all kinds of messages to Trump that he should punish Buhari (as if Buhari was a kindergarten pupil).

But Trump instead invited Buhari to the White House. Why?

(I'm going to try not to repeat my old post and to summarise the historical context).

The Nigerian military had to completely change the way that it operated after 2009. It was designed to fight conventional wars, but the greatest challenge to Nigeria became asymetric warfare.

The army was not fighting against fixed massed ranks opponents, instead they were fighting against opponents that used Volkswagen Golf and motorcycles to conduct hit and run at tacks.

The air force was not fighting against fighter jets and bombers, but against well disguised moving targets on the ground.

The thinking, methods and equipment had to change.

The Jonathan Administration tried to buy COIN planes (Super Tucano) from Brazil and COIN helicopters (AH-1 Cobra) from Israel, but the United States blocked the deal. What does it have to do with the US?

The US usually signs agreements that state that they have a say in who you sell weapons to if those weapons have American components. Furthermore, the US will impose sanctions on you if you sell weapons to a country that it has imposed sanctions on.

We had a similar deal with Germany. NNS Aradu was built by a German company and it utilised MEKO 360 technology. This was during the Cold War (1982) and embedded in the deal was a clause that the Germans would not sell anything to us again if we sold NNS Aradu to the Soviets.

Brazil was trying to sell Super Tucanos to the US and US Air Force officers had suggested upgrades to the aircraft. The Cobra was an American made helicopter that the Americans had sold to Israel.

So the US could block the deal.

Why did the US block the deal.

Well, there was a law that the US State Department must provide human rights report to Congress and Congress would impose sanctions on any military forces that violated human rights.

As I have previously told you, the JTF in the North-East in the early days (2011 - 2014) had arrested and detained a lot of innocent people. Any time that soldiers were killed, their angry colleagues would go on a rampage and arrest and torture innocent people. So the US Congress imposed sanctions on the JTF. That's why they blocked the aircraft deal.

The GEJ Administration made things worse by later trying to bypass the sanctions when they put cash in a plane and tried to use a third party to by the equipment. The plane was arrested in South Africa.

Trump and Buhari

Trump likes to think of himself as the ultimate deal maker and his first interest is in what will make money for the US.

That's why he invited Buhari to the White House. He made a deal through which he bypassed the sanctions (some members of Congress, especially the senator that originally proposed the law, were not happy) and Nigeria got Super Tucanos.

Obviously it was about money for the US. Embraer is a Brazilian multi-national aircraft manufacturer. They had established a factory in the US to manufacture Super Tucano for the US Air Force. Trump made sure that the Super Tucano that Nigeria bought was manufactured in the US, not Brazil. The deal also included spare parts, munitions and training for Nigerian Air Force personnel. The US Air Force also upgraded the Nigerian Air Force base at Kainji.

Anger

It wasn't all sweet and sugar. Having made one deal, Trump tried to make another. He tried to get Buhari to buy US agricultural products, but if you are Nigerian you must know how Buhari feels about that. He rejected the deal. Trump wasn't happy about that, but he was satisfied that he at least got one deal done.

Trump and Tinubu

But there's still another deal that is pending. Nigeria still hasn't gotten the helicopters. The chief of air staff recently went to the US to continue negotiations. If the Tinubu Administration wants to get on Trump's good side all they need to do is pursue that helicopter deal.

Trump is all about the deals.

I wrote this in June 2025.



Brazil - Tucano, Israel - Cobra

The Nigerian military was set up to fight conventional wars, it was not set up for asymmetric warfare. It needed equipment for counter insurgency operations, especially slow moving aircraft that had great loiter time for ground attack operations.

The Goodluck Jonathan Administration tried to buy Tucano war planes from Embraer of Brazil and Cobra helicopters from Israel. The US Government blocked both sales. Supporters of Goodluck Jonathan were livid. What was the US' business with our dealings with Brazil and Israel?

(This is one of the reasons that supporters of Goodluck Jonathan say that Barrack Obama was opposed to Goodluck Jonathan).

Actually, it all had to do with the Leahy Law.

Firstly, Cobra attack helicopters are made in the US and, as with most arms suppliers, the US has a say in who they are eventually sold to. I'll give you an example with Nigeria.

NNS Aradu was built for Nigeria by a German shipyard. I had a friend in the Navy who told me (in the 1980s) that the West Germans stated in the contract that we could not sell NNS Aradu to the Soviet Union. They stated that they would not sell even a rifle to Nigeria ever again if we sold the Aradu to the Soviet Union.

I believe it was because the Aradu was the first of the MEKO 360 ships and the Germans did not want the Soviets to get the MEKO technology.

So the United States sold Cobra helicopters to Israel and they had a say over who the Israelis eventually sold it to. The fact that the helicopters had US technology in them made them subject to the restrictions in the Leahy law. There's another reason which you'll see in the case of the Tucanos.

Embraer is a major Brazilian aircraft company and we wanted to buy the Tucano from them, but the US blocked the deal. Why and how?

Well, it's just like the sanctions that Nigeria imposed on South Africa during the apartheid era. Those sanctions had third party implication. It meant that Nigeria did not conduct business with any company or entity that conducted business with South Africa.

Embraer was negotiating a deal to sell Super Tucano aircraft to the US Air Force and US Marines. In fact, they had set up a factory in America to produce the aircraft and US Air Force officials had made some changes to the Tucano to produce the Super Tucano. That deal would have been cancelled if Embraer sold Tucano planes to Nigeria. Of course Embraer would make more money from the US than they would make from Nigeria and so they refused to deal with the Nigerian Government.

South African debacle

The GEJ Administration tried to get around the ban by loading a plane with cash and trying to buy arms on the black market, but the plane was detained in South Africa.

The reason for the sanctions

The sanctions were not against Nigeria in general or the Nigerian military. They were specifically against the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the North-East. They were imposed because of reports that JTF troops had detained people at random, they had detained people without trial for long periods of time, they had tortured people, etc. In fact, so many people had been detained that the detention facilities at Giwa Barracks were too full.


Trump

These sanctions were in place during the Jonathan Era and the beginning of the Buhari Era. They were the reason why some supporters of Goodluck Jonathan said that Barrack Obama was against GEJ. They led to some very interesting exchanges on social media.

Senator Leahy, who originally sponsored the law, condemned the Nigerian military. His supporters expressed surprise that the Nigerian Government and its supporters were against the Leahy Law. They said that the law was meant to guaranty human rights and everybody should support it.

Senator Leahy had an amazing exchange with Femi Fani-Kayode. The senator insulted the Nigerian Army and Femi Fani-Kayode insulted him. In fact, FFK wrote an article about Patrick Leahy.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS (SEASON ONE)
https://femifanikayode.org/senator-patrick-leahy-with-friends-like-this/

However, Donald Trump became president of the US and he often boasts that he is capable of making any deal work. He began working on a deal that would allow Nigeria to get the Super Tucanos. These were the elements of the deal that made it work.

1) The Super Tucanos that Nigeria would buy would be made in the United States, not Brazil. (This follows Donald Trump's idea that he is making money for the US and doing deals to benefit the US).

2) The aircraft can only be used in certain places (if I remember correctly, the aircraft can only be used in the North-East and North-West). This is to satisfy people like Patrick Leahy. There are other conditions that were put in place to ensure that the planes are only used against Boko Haram.

3) The deal includes training, ammunition and the upgrade of the air force base in Kainji where the Super Tucanos are based.

That was how Nigeria was able to get the Super
Tucanos. However, we have still not got the helicopters.

The helicopter request was upgraded from Cobra helicopters to Vipers. Negotiations are still ongoing (the former chief of air staff was in the US a few months ago to continue negotiations for the helicopters).

Nigerian Air Force @NigAirForce

NIGERIA–US DEFENCE PARTNERSHIP ADVANCES AS NAF EARNS PRAISE FOR AH-1Z PREPAREDNESS

The United States Government has commended the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) for its high level of preparedness ahead of the delivery of the AH-1Z helicopters to Nigeria, including the readiness of designated NAF facilities where the aircraft will be domiciled. The commendation was conveyed during a three-day high-level engagement between the US Government delegation from PMA-276, led by Robert Galan, and senior NAF stakeholders at Headquarters Nigerian Air Force, Abuja. The meeting focused on the comprehensive Programme and Support Plan designed to ensure seamless integration, sustainment, and operational effectiveness of the incoming fleet.

The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke, was represented at the engagement by the Chief of Policy and Plans, Air Vice Marshal Abubakar Abdullahi, who reaffirmed the Service’s unwavering commitment to aligning all operational, technical, and logistical requirements to guarantee immediate operational readiness upon delivery of the aircraft.

The engagement underscores the steady advancement of Nigeria–United States defence cooperation, anchored on mutual trust, shared security objectives, and institutional professionalism. The commendation reflects international recognition of the Nigerian Air Force’s meticulous planning, strategic foresight, and disciplined modernization drive under the leadership of the Chief of the Air Staff. Beyond fleet acquisition, this collaboration strengthens Nigeria’s airpower capability, reinforces national security architecture, and contributes meaningfully to broader national stability and sustainable development.

#NigerianAirForce #USNigeriaPartnership #DefenseCooperation #AirPower

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