Thread by @DefenseNigeria

When the UK announced in December 2021 that it was adding Nigeria to the red list, Nigeria banned the UK Canada and Saudi Arabia. Within a week the UK announced it was lifting the ban and that Nigeria was no more on the red list.

The position taken by the Nigerian government was firm and strong. It demonstrated they did not have a monopoly on bans. Nigeria played the political game well. This self reliance and less dependence on a past colonial power is the positive vestige

..of Britain's post colonial policy. Anglo Africans have their own space. This is what is lacking in francophone states. This independence guides British defence policy with Nigeria. Many see the French involvement in West Africa and wonder why Britain isn't doing the same.

There was once an Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact after independence. Boy was there pandemonium. The South hated the idea. The north loved it. Before independence the federal powers over defence and foreign affairs were exercised by the British government. After independence this

..pact was vehemently opposed as bringing back the vestiges of colonialism. At the end of the day the pact was dropped in favour of building a strong Nigerian military with Britian as its chief arms suppliers. The Vickers Tanks, Scorpion tanks, Blow pipe air defence missiles

..and even our Military Institutions are all a by product of this decision. French involvement in the Sepecat Jaguar deal meant it was doomed to fail from the begining. Britain had one of the strongest military industrial complex in the world and Nigeria benefited immensely.

The Britain of the 80s is not the Britain of today. Liberal culture have taken over most of the West..Britain included. The UK has avoided providing Nigeria with arms because of allegations of human rights abuses. The Economist Magazines recent article on the Nigerian military

...which a caption

"The Nigerian Army is Useless"

Yes. Verbatim, and Nigerian army generals are selling weapons to Boko Haram, should give you a good perspective. Zero respect. Not long ago the PM promised to investigate the Nigerian army over human rights abuses

.for no other reason than the army's announcement 24,000 Boko Haram insurgents surrendered between October 2021 and January 2022. They are talking about establishing specialist army training team to tackle sexual violence in the army. The UK military has gone WOKE.

The British army today is already the smallest its been in 400 years and they are still weighing the options of losing up to 10,000 soldiers from the regular Army's notional strength of 82,000 in order to help fund its modernisation. It's bad. Its a sad state of affairs.

They call it a radical transformation. They have this belief that with 72,000 men Britannia can still have a bigger presence around the world.

Meanwhile the French are loving every bit of it. France has Western Europe's largest and most powerful army, navy and air force

They have Europe's only nuclear powered aircraft carrier and build their own weapons system. The ability of Britain to help Nigeria militarily at a strategic level is handicapped by the WOKE based military establishment.

We have France openly supporting and aiding dictators. Openly. We have Britain threatening to investigate the Nigerian army over human rights because its winning too fast, or major British publications denigrading Nigeria's war effort. It's a sad case. I see no hope.

Nigeria has one of Africa's largest conventional forces. It has a standing army of 234,000 men. The army has 394 Main Battle Tanks to Britain's 180. The Nigerian Navy is the largest in black Africa. Where it took a coalition of American, European and Asian navies

..to tame the Gulf of Aden, the Nigerian Navy has single handedly guaranteed freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Guinea. Yet they call Nigeria useless. Where Nigeria has serious deficiencies is in the numbers of tactical aircrafts and British cannot help us in this area.

In my opinion strategic ties with Nigeria has to be earned. Strategic ties with Britain under current clime entails more seditious reportage and threats and a hail of human rights accusations at the slightest provocation...but what do i know? I am just an independent analyst.