₦airaland Forum

The Minister of State for Defense, Dr Bello Mohammed Matawalle has announced the deployment of 1000 Naval officers to Maradun.

Addressing the people of Maradun at his country home during a six-day visit to Zamfara, Matawalle said already, a letter to that effect has been sent to the state government for further action.

“We have deployed 1000 Naval Officers to Zamfara as part of determination to fight banditry in the state”, he added.

According to him, the federal government is requesting the state government to accommodate the Naval Officers in RUGA.

The minister also ordered the military base at Maradun to facilitate the opening of the Maradun-Magami-Faru road as well as the Gora-Jambako up to the Kaya axis.

"I have given directives to the military base at Maradun to work hard to clear Bandits with the area without further delay.”, Matawalle asserted.

Richtaiwo:
I thought navy fight in water. Abi ma for water tge bandits dey hide for Zamfara?

naptu2:
I wonder if I can find that video. It's such a long time and I can't even remember the context very well.

naptu2:
Haha. I underestimated myself. I found it at first try. It's from 2013. I even found the Nairaland thread.


Al-Jazeera interviewed some arrested Boko Haram fighters, but that's not why I'm posting the video. I'm posting it because I want you to take note of the masked Nigerian Navy SBS commando in the background.

The interview was conducted in Maiduguri.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0qgYFUQJ3E

Richtaiwo:
I thought navy fight in water. Abi ma for water tge bandits dey hide for Zamfara?

Richtaiwo:
I thought navy fight in water. Abi ma for water tge bandits dey hide for Zamfara?

naptu2:
The army fights on land, air and sea.

The navy fights on water, air and land.

The air force fights in the air and on land.

TimeManager:
https://dailypost.ng/2024/12/24/1000-naval-officers-to-be-deployed-to-maradun-zamfara-minister-matawalle/?

Sunisonflex39:
I am.not understanding...do the navy have ground warfare training?

Richtaiwo:
I thought navy fight in water. Abi ma for water tge bandits dey hide for Zamfara?

naptu2:
Let's expand on this idea that the Navy does not only fight on water, the air force does not only fight in the air and the army does not only fight on land. Let's go international.


The issue that led to the controversy is that the Nigerian Navy announced that it was setting up a desert warfare school in Kano. So let's look at other navies in the desert.


These are US Navy Seals (the equivalent of the Nigerian Navy SBS) fighting in the deserts of Iraq.

Watch these badass Navy Seals in action in the desert. A tribute to Navy Seals using declassified footage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTp1HGS16zQ

naptu2:
The United Kingdom's Special Boat Squadron (SBS). Fighting at sea, on land and in the air.

You can see the SBS commandos fighting in Afghanistan in 2001.

You can also see SBS commandos securing the British Embassy in Kuwait in 1991.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwh0WzPWY0E

baralatie:
Army does not fight in the air.they are not supermen
Navy does not fight on land they are not Aquaman
Air force does not even have the wherewithal to fight on land they are not thor

naptu2:
You might have heard by now that the Nigerian Navy is planning to establish a desert warfare centre in Kano. This has led to criticism and condemnation from some people. Normally I would slam and condemn such people, but I won't do that this time because I can understand where they are coming from. They have the old idea of the military that I had in the early 1980s. That idea says that:


The Army fights on land, the Navy fights on water and the Air Force fights in the air.

That very simplistic idea does not explain what the military does. The Navy fights in the air, land and sea and even under water, the Army fights on land, air and sea and the Air Force fights in the air, on land and even in outer space.


The second mistake that they are making is that they think that the North is made up of deserts and no bodies of water. That's obviously not true.


So why does the Navy need a desert warfare centre? What's the Navy, which they think is supposed to fight on water, got to do with deserts? Well, there are two reasons and here they are:


1) Lake Chad: Back in the 1980s I imagined what it would be like if the Nigerian Navy had a base on Lake Chad. I did not realise at the time that they already had a base there and I could not have imagined how important that base would be decades later.

There are many uninhabited islands on Lake Chad and Boko Haram had developed a tactic of retreating to those islands whenever they were put under pressure by the Nigerian military. The Air Force and the Navy have been involved in many operations to clear those islands and there has been a tug of war between the Nigerian Military and Boko Haram for control of the islands.

Furthermore, that area is very important. The residents of that area previously earned a living from fishing, but they have not been able to carry out that occupation because of fear of Boko Haram. It has been up to the Navy to assure the residents that it is safe to fish in the area. Boko Haram also earns revenue from the area by imposing taxes on the fishermen.

I would have shown you evidence of all of these, but I don't want to spread Boko Haram propaganda. Boko Haram once captured the Naval Base on the shore of Lake Chad and they released a video that showed them jubilating on Nigerian Navy boats. The Navy recaptured the based a few days later (this was in 2019). I am obviously not going to post that video.



2) Special forces The military's special forces are some of the best trained and equipped fighters that it has and they are all needed in the war in the North-East. The Nigerian Navy Special Boat Service (SBS) has also been involved in the war against terrorists as you can see from the video that I posted earlier. The Boko Haram prisoners that were interviewed were being guarded by Nigerian Navy SBS commandos.



The Naval personnel that guard the Navy Bases on the shores of the Lake Chad, as well as the SBS commandos that battle the terrorists, need to be trained in desert warfare and this training was previously done in the United States. I don't see anything wrong if those that were trained in the US are now going to train other Naval personnel at the desert warfare school in Kano.

naptu2:
That is the other thing that I didn't include in my post about the naval base in Kano. That's because I wanted to be nice to the people that opposed it. Most of them do not know that their emotions are being whipped up by people who have ulterior motives. Why?

Because the concept of stone frigates is not new in Nigeria. At least we know that one of the reasons for establishing the desert warfare centre is to train people to protect the naval base at Lake Chad, what about all the naval establishments in places that do not have any international borders or waterways on international borders for the Navy to operate in? How come there has been no outrage and uproar about those establishments?

I'm referring to naval establishments in places like Ilorin in Kwara State, Odekpe in Anambra State, Abeokuta in Ogun State, Oguta in Imo State, Offa in Kwara State, Owerrinta in Imo State, etc. How come there's no noise about these bases, but there's an uproar about the naval base in Kano?

chatinent:
Overdue.

Cost it looks like it's only the army that's doing the work..

naptu2:
The Nigerian Navy Special Boat Service is fashioned after the Royal Navy Special Boat Service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Boat_Service


Nigerian Navy Special Boat Service commandos perform boarding, search and seizure training in Lagos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l4kROF1DWI


Nigerian Navy Special Boat Service personnel and Ghanaian Navy special forces personnel train in Nigeria.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO24ODeV69Y


Picture 1) Nigerian Navy SBS commandoes and US Navy SEALS train in Lagos.

Picture 2) A Nigerian Navy SBS commando.

Picture 3) Nigerian Navy SBS commando in desert fatigues.

Picture 4) Nigerian Navy SBS commandos and a journalist

naptu2:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVPmy00md1s