Yesterday the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Isiaka Amao, announced that the NAF is expected to take delivery of 55 fighter helicopters by December 2022. This includes
An unspecified number of AW109 Trekker multi-role light twin engine helicopter.
This is the most powerful air fleet ever assembled by an African nation South of the Sahara. More remarkable is the fact that Nigeria is technically broke. We barely just made it out of a recession. Meanwhile between 2010 and 2015 Nigeria made more money from the sale of crude
than at any time in our history, with oil prices hovering over $100 per barel, translating to almost $300 billion in annual revenue compared to barely $60 billion today. Can you imagine where we will be today if this level of investment was made on the military back then?
As Nigeria basked in a financial nirvana the best we could do was aquire a handful of second hand T-72 tanks via 3rd party from the Czech Republic without spare parts. Annual defence budget was then was close to $5 billion, with a supplementary $1 billion set aside for munition.