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Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? - Politics - Nairaland

Nairaland ForumNairaland GeneralPoliticsDoes Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? (2139 Views)

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Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Orubebe01(op):
Just curious to know if we have long range missiles as being witnessed in the Iran isreal war.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by fuckJones(f): 8:57am On Mar 03
Yes, even thou we don't have external enemies that require such weapons but we still have air to air long range missiles incase ghana do any how
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Bbb007: 10:36am On Mar 03
fuckJones:
Yes, even thou we don't have external enemies that require such weapons but we still have air to air long range missiles incase ghana do any how
Nigeria is never serious with important things like this until last dying minutes. As for now we don't because there's no external threats that will make our defense to require it.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Topman7: 10:42am On Mar 03
Orubebe01:
Just curious to know if we have long range missile as being witnessed in the Iran isreal war.
Each of those 'long range missiles' cost tens of millions of dollars each. Maintenance costs for each one runs into millions of dollars a month.

Who is Nigeria dropping such fearsome long-range missiles on, that we should acquire them?

Who are we preparing to fight?

What the Nigerian military has is:

✔ Short-range air-to-air missiles
✔ Air-to-ground missiles (anti-insurgency)
✔ Helicopter-launched guided weapons

That's what we need for now. undecided
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Antoeni(m): 10:43am On Mar 03
We Get KNOCKOUT And BANGER
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by brodalikeme(m): 10:52am On Mar 03
Yes it does. When decisions are launch from a WhatsApp group by either the admin or members of the groups, its effect is far reaching nationwide Everything terrible and reacts to it.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by nairalanda1(m): 11:37am On Mar 03
Bbb007:
Nigeria is never serious with important things like this until last dying minutes. As for now we don't because there's no external threats that will make our defense to require it.
If you want long range missiles, you got to have the industrial backing to make and maintain them, which we don't have.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by loveth360(f): 11:46am On Mar 03
Orubebe01:
Just curious to know if we have long range missile as being witnessed in the Iran isreal war.
Yes they have

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Houseofglam7(f): 12:04pm On Mar 03
If that’s another name for sex performance enhancing substances, then, yes, Nigeria has long range missiles.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Orubebe01(op): 1:06pm On Mar 03
Abidoshaka is there, what do we need long range missiles for?
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by seunmsg(m): 1:08pm On Mar 03
Bbb007:
Nigeria is never serious with important things like this until last dying minutes. As for now we don't because there's no external threats that will make our defense to require it.
Who do we want to fight with a long range missile?
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Topman7: 1:10pm On Mar 03
Houseofglam7:
If that’s another name for sex performance enhancing substances, then, yes, Nigeria has long range missiles.
What have you ever invented or innovated in your life?

THERE IS NO INVENTOR NAMED "NIGERIA".

INVENTORS ARE PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by nedu666: 1:12pm On Mar 03
We have juju, odeshi, pastors, miracle workers, prophet and prophetess. What do we need missile for
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Topman7: 1:14pm On Mar 03
nedu666:
We have juju, odeshi, pastors, miracle workers, prophet and prophetess. What do we need missile for
What a dumb thing to type.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by Christistruth03: 1:17pm On Mar 03
fuckJones:
Yes, even thou we don't have external enemies that require such weapons but we still have air to air long range missiles incase ghana do any how
We know Nigeria used Missiles that could Travel 10 km against Boko Haram in the past

Nigeria has Drones that can travel Further and with some innovations learnt from Ukraine
Bombs can be strapped to them
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by IGBOPROMISE1: 2:12pm On Mar 03
fuckJones:
Yes, even thou we don't have external enemies that require such weapons but we still have air to air long range missiles incase ghana do any how
So how come we’ve never seen it tested or displayed in military parades? All i ever see are Ogbunigwe type/era ordnance!
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by OlujobaSamuel: 2:12pm On Mar 03
Wetin wẹ wan use am do
When we no dey launch to boko haram enclave from Lagos
Abeg it's not every good thing that is necessary, it's just like police walking about the street with machine gun or RPG
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by kokoA(m): 2:59pm On Mar 03
We for don colonize Ghana since.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:00pm On Mar 03
Aha! A place to dump my old posts.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:01pm On Mar 03
There is a big difference between these statements:

1) I don't know.

2) I have not heard.

And

3) There is no. . .


Nigerians enjoy saying bad things about their country and one of the ways they do this is to say the 3rd statement, when the true statements would have been numbers 1 or 2.

I'll give you an example with an old Nairaland thread.

A person from the UK came to Nairaland to ask if Nigeria has privacy laws. He was thinking of starting a detective agency and he wanted to know the limitations that the law would place on him.

My God, you should have seen the responses! "There is no such thing in Nigeria", "Have Nigerians ever heard of privacy"? One even said that it was a funny question.

Meanwhile, the right to private family life is right there in the constitution (which is quite relevant because the person was talking about things like cheating spouse, etc). Of course I posted the relevant sections on the thread. It was only me and two other people that were making sense on the thread.

One of the people that said that there were no privacy laws in Nigeria refused to take correction. She was all over the place, writing all kinds of weird things. One of the other guys decided to argue with her and force her to admit that she was wrong, but I had no energy for that kind of thing.




The latest example, in the past few years, have to do with Nigeria's air defence systems.

There are people that take joy in proclaiming that Nigeria has no air defence system. Meanwhile, I knew Nigeria's air defence systems 40 years ago o! Yet we are in 2026 and these funny people are not ashamed to ignorantly proclaim that Nigeria has no air defence system.

Anyway, my curiosity began in the early 1980s when someone that was in the Navy told me that the Navy's surface to air missiles were kept at a certain location in Apapa.

Of course I've told you many times about Kainji Dam. Military governments were obsessed with protecting our national assets and so I knew 40 years ago (1986) that there was an air base in Kainji, there was an army base there and several of these air defence systems were placed at Kainji to protect the dam from air attacks. That's 40 years ago o!

In fact do you remember the German air defence system that I often post about here (the anti-spam bot hates its name)? One of the reasons why I liked it was because it reminded me of one of the Nigerian air defence systems.

Remember that this was during the Cold War, so we had some systems from the west (France and Germany) and some systems from the east (Soviet Union).

For example, we had the Roland Air Defence System (anti-missile missile) from the west and the Shilka Air Defence System (anti-missile and anti-air craft gun).

That was 40 years ago.
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:02pm On Mar 03
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:03pm On Mar 03
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:03pm On Mar 03
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:05pm On Mar 03
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:05pm On Mar 03
40 years ago I knew about the short range mobile air defence systems because I could see them on my TV screens during national day parades.

I wanted to know more about the static and long range air defence systems, but those were treated like state secrets. This video shows some of those systems.

Around 70% of the missile systems shown here are no longer used by the Nigerian military (we've transitioned to more modern systems).

Basically, this video mainly shows the missile systems that Nigeria bought during the oil boom era, but it also shows a few more recent (and mostly Chinese) systems.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNAjIkVntuE?si=sLAXd47w9Epokvih
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:07pm On Mar 03
I've still not found what I'm looking for so let's move on.

We've done army and air force, so let's do navy.

One of the reasons that NNS Aradu was so good was because it was a large multi-purpose frigate.

It had torpedos, depth charges and a helicopter for anti-submarine warfare, it had anti-ship missiles and multiple guns for surface warfare and it had this for anti-aircraft duties.

These were also on our fast missile crafts.

Aspide missiles


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaTGPZec31U?si=L4KSL9I7nuw7FAFq

It had Plessey AWS 5 air/surface search radar and Signaal STIR fire control radar.

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:12pm On Mar 03
These are old. I knew about them 40 years ago. I'll write about the new stuff when I get back but I have no pictures of the new stuff.

Photos 1 and 2) Roland Air Defence System (Nigerian Army). This uses missiles.

Photo 3) This is that German air defence system whose name I cannot post. The anti-spam bot has banned me every single time that I have posted its name. (Note: I'm only posting this because I like to post it, the Nigerian military does not have this). This uses cannons.

Photo 4) Shilka Air Defence System. This uses anti-aircraft guns.

All of them have integrated radar systems.

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:13pm On Mar 03
Nigerian Army and Nigerian Air Force multi-barrel rocket launcher.

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:17pm On Mar 03
I'm sure you've guessed that I still haven't found what I'm searching for (it's difficult to find Nigerian stuff online) and I'm sure you know what it is.

But I'll keep searching.

In the meantime, here are

1) Nigerian Air Force 36D6 "Tin Shield" Mobile Radar

2) Nigerian Army and Nigerian Air Force Skyguard Fire-Control Radar

3) Oerlikon GDF twin 35mm anti-aircraft guns

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2: 3:18pm On Mar 03
Chinese, European firms battle for Nigeria’s strategic air defense and radar contract

June 5, 2025

Nigeria is intensifying efforts to modernize its air defense and radar systems by evaluating advanced solutions from Chinese and European firms to address evolving security threats in its airspace and the broader West African region.

⚫️ Nigeria is modernizing its air defense and radar systems to address regional security threats.

⚫️ European and Chinese firms are competing for the contract to provide radar technologies.

⚫️Implementing MTRACON may enhance regional airspace security and cooperation in West Africa.


Nigeria's plans to solidify and improve its air defense and radar systems is a step further in realizing its Military Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (MTRACON) initiative, which is aimed at establishing a robust, integrated network of surveillance systems capable of detecting, tracking, and neutralizing aerial threats in real time.

The MTRACON initiative is central to Nigeria’s ambition to close long-standing gaps in radar coverage, particularly over remote and high-risk areas vulnerable to smuggling, insurgent drone incursions, and potential airspace violations.

Designed as a multi-layered system, it combines fixed and mobile radar installations with modern command and control centers, allowing for coordinated air defense responses and better situational awareness across Nigeria’s vast territory.

Military Africa reports that four major defense firms, which include Leonardo (Italy), Rheinmetall (Germany), Norinco (China), and Indra (Spain), are vying for a lucrative contract to supply advanced surveillance and detection technologies.

The report highlights Nigeria’s pressing need to upgrade its radar systems, as its existing air defense platforms, such as the Roland II and ZSU-23-4 Shilka, are no longer effective against contemporary aerial threats.

Coupled with persistent internal security issues such as insurgencies and threats to vital infrastructure, these weaknesses have elevated the MTRACON project to a top national priority.

Strategic defense bids underway

Rheinmetall is promoting its Skyguard 3 system to replace Nigeria’s ageing air defense platforms, offering protection against modern threats like cruise missiles and UAVs.

The company has engaged with Nigerian officials on broader defense needs, including ammunition supplies, in partnership with the defense Industries Corporation (DICON).

China’s Norinco is deeply involved in Nigeria’s MTRACON initiative, proposing radar and air defense infrastructure alongside talent development and a Radar Maintenance and Research Facility, highlighting a long-term commitment to local defense self-reliance.

Indra showcased integrated air traffic control, communication, radar, and counter-UAV solutions during a delegation visit that included Nigeria’s Chief of Air Staff, emphasizing support for both military and civilian needs.

Italy’s Leonardo is pitching its RAT 31DL/M, a NATO-standard long-range AESA radar capable of tracking multiple targets simultaneously and operating effectively under electronic jamming, making it a strong contender for Nigeria’s airspace security upgrade.

With Nigeria serving as a key military and economic power in the region, the implementation of MTRACON is expected to reinforce regional airspace management and provide early warning capabilities that could benefit neighbouring states facing similar asymmetric threats.
https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/chinese-european-firms-battle-for-nigerias-strategic-air-defense-and-radar-contract/86clkqf
Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by naptu2:
It's not only Nigeria.

But at least this one asked a question instead of making a definite statement based on ignorance.

(Nairaland won't let me post photos).

Re: Does Nigeria Have Long Range Missiles And Air Defence System? by IsraeliAIRFORCE: 3:24pm On Mar 03
Having missiles and air defenses is one thing and misfiring is another thing when attempting to use them. Remember when Iran shot down civilian aircraft and killed most of her citizens on board.

Islamic Jihad has a far better experience in firing rockets and missiles than Nigeria military.
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