There is news making the rounds in mainstrean media that Nigeria is paying the cost of the sudden interruption of weapons imports from Russia. One wonders if this just preying on the limited knowledge of some Nigerians in the global arms industry or just genuine ignorance.
The bulk of Nigeria's arms procurement in the last decade has been with China, Pakistan, Turkey, France, Italy and Czech Republic. Russia accounts for less than 5% of Nigeria's arms import. Let's start from the navy.
Our most modern corvette, NNS Unity and NNS Centenary are from China.
The Navy's newest Hydrological survey vessel NNS Lana is from France.
The new Landing Ship Tank (LST-100), aka roll-on-roll-off landing ship, to replace NNS AMBE and NNS OFIOM was constructed by Damen Shipyards in the Netherlands.
In November 2021 the Nigerian Navy signed a contract with the Turkish company, Messrs Dearsan Shipyard Limited for the purchase of two brand new Offshore Patrol Vessels.
On land the newly aquired Type 89 Infantry fighting vehicles (China)
CSK-131 Dongfeng Mengshi amoured vehicle (China)
VT-4 Main Battle Tank and ST-1 Light Tanks (China).
SH105 self propelled artillery (China).
CS/VP3 "Bigfoot" Mrap (China).
Isotrex Mrap (UAE)
In the air, JF-17 Thunder and Super Mushank trainers aircraft (Pakistan)
AWI09 E "Power" attack helicopter (Italy).
A-29 Super Tucano COIN attack aircraft. (USA).
The only Russian hardware aquired in the last five years are the Mi-35M helicopter gunships and Mi-17 multi mission helicopter.
Nigeria is far less reliant on Russian weapons to meet its security imperatives than most people realise.
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