Update on the Scramble for Africa.

France is closing 2023 with a diminished presence in the restive Sahel region and Al-Qaeda is livid with rage against the putchist in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, going as far as calling them trecherous. The leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb recently released a 22 minutes tape where he branded the new military rulers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali "treacherous"and called on the citizens of these countries to turn on their leaders.

Why is AQIM upset about the French exit

Today in History: December 1, 1961

Nigeria gave France 48 hours to close down its Embassy in Lagos and to pack out of the country in retaliation against France exploding three nuclear devices in the Sahara despite vehement protests by Nigeria and other newly independent





African countries. Nigeria also banned French ships and aeroplanes from calling at her ports. The French Embassy in Lagos remained shut until October 1965. This unprecedented demonstration of power and resolve by an African country was a source of worry for France.

For the NAF to transform it's self from a tactical, defensive force within Nigeria to one capable of strategic missions beyond territorial borders we need to up our numbers game.

The NAF already has the quality based on current and projected platforms.





A decade+ long insurgency, that necessitated on-going reforms changed the NAF's equipment priorities, from modernizing high tech hardware to platforms optimized for COIN and network-centric warfare.

The air force has progressed considerably towards building

Still feeling under the weather 🤕. It gets worse as evening approaches.

However, after going through the comment section I've decided it's time to make the case for an ECOWAS intervention in Niger before analysing the capabilities of the potential belligerent of this crises. ECOWAS weak response to recent coup 'd'etats paved the way for what is now a belt of dictatorships that stretches all the way from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali and now Niger. They plotters gained the perception that ECOWAS is weak and could be challenged.

The Presidents Legacy.

In 1983 Maj. General Muhammadu Buhari, GOC of the 3rd Division in Jos flushed out Chadian forces that invaded Nigerian communities in dramatic fashion. 40 years later he presides over what is arguably the biggest military build-up in Nigeria's history. The President realised the nation was in need of an overhaul of the military. Nigeria had been humiliated in the early stages of the insurgency and the terrorists seemed secure in their unrelenting mission of conquest. Boko Haram captured and occupied 22 LGA's in the northeast.

NAF A-29 with its panoply of GBU Paveway II laser guided bombs, 70mm rockets with Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) and 589 kilogram bombs. The cutting edge of American precision guided munitions and the NAF is the only in sub-sahara Africa to employ them. The GBU paveway II integrates the most advanced guidance system that basically converts "dumb" Gravity bombs into precision guided munitions. A semi-active laser seeker and pneumatically controlled canards guide the weapon to its targets with pin point accuracy.

Economic activities will receive a boost on both sides of the border between Nigeria and Cameroon after eight years of almost no activity, as Cameroon for the first time in eight years fully opens the Mayo Limani bridge that links northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram destroyed the bridge in 2015 in an effort to damage trade between both countries. Civilians and merchants were jubilant at the reopening of the 120 meter long Mayo Limani Bridge that links Amchide in Cameroon & Limani in Nigeria

Who remembers when western pundits claimed the fusion of Boko Haram and ISWAP heralds a disturbing development too great for the Nigerian military to handle. They claimed by 2023 Boko Haram/ISWAP will control vast swatches of land stretching as far as the middlebelt. Their logic was that if the Nigerian military was having a hard time with Boko Haram, a coalition with ISWAP spells doom for the "ill-equipped" Nigerian military on a scale that might necessitate foreign intervention to avert a humanitarian crises of apocalyptic proportions

An ANKA UAV factory in Nigeria will be immensely beneficial for Nigeria. Countries lobby for such deals, and here we are being offered such an opportunity on a platter of gold.

Now there there might not necessarily be an agreement to transfer the technology knowhow. However Nigerian engineers will have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the technology. Learn how it’s done, making refinements along the way in the armed prototype of the Tsaigumi UAV currently under development.

In an 8 year span the NAF has gone from relative obscurity to become the most prolific airforce in Sub Sahara Africa. This fact is not lost on Zimbabwe's Air Chief, Marshal Elson Moyo who is seeking the assistance of the Nigerian Air Force in the area of research & development. He is calling on the NAF to come to the rescue of Zimbabwe, adding that the sanction slammed on his country had created technical challenges for the service. He also solicited assistance from the NAF with the maintenance of two of its F7 fighter jet and Mi-35 helicopter gunships

The case for EXPANDING the Falcon Eye Maritime Domain Awareness and Surveillance System to monitor the backwards and exports terminals, reducing oil theft the same way it eliminated piracy using it's state of the art domain awareness technology. December 6, 2022: The NSA inaugurates an 11 man Special Investigative Panel and gives them 10 weeks to investigate all aspects of crude oil theft/losses and their ramifications. The panel is chaired by seasoned administrators and retired top military and police officers.

So the Nigerian Air Force has 50 aircraft on order (54 to be exact), some to be delivered by the 2nd quater of this year.This includes six T-129 attack helicopters, 24 M-346 FA "Master" multi-role jets, 12 Bell AH-1Z Viper helicopters for (to be delivered 2024)... ..ISR assets and more armed attack drones in the form of two King Air 360i ISR plane, four Diamond DA-62 surveillance aircraft,  Bayraktar TB2 and three more Wing Loong II unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs).

You cannot pay terrorists £13 million in ransom and claim to be a partner in the war against terrorism. Just last week (March 20 2023) France paid €13 million to terrorists in Niger for the release of a French journalist Olivier Du Boise. In 2013 they paid $3 million to Boko Haram for the release of a French journalist, a deal that included the release of top Boko Haram commanders from prison in Cameroon and tried to hide it from the Nigerian government. Even after BBC broke the story.

The dynamic nature of the security enviroment necessitated the expansion & amendment of the Terrorism Prevention Act.

This means morphing all key departments of the Intelligence community into one body, in one office complex to optimally discharge their functions. Making it.. a key platform for enhancing inter-agency processes due to the broad representation of security agencies. The main office complex is the upgraded Intelligence Fusion Centre, which is designed to produce threat assessments and estimates over a broad range of security issues.

So yesterday President Buhari inaugurated the new state of the art facility of the :

1. Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

2. National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC)

...to address evolving security challenges, such as terrorism, armed banditry and kidnaping. This high tech National Counter Terrorism Centre is designed in a modular configuration, allowing for additional workforce and seamless technological transition.

However, this state of the art edifice has no adopted baseline technology ... yet.

ISWAP/Boko Haram are at their lowest ebb ever. There are isolated attacks here and there, but behind these attacks there is a different story. These terrorist groups are transforming themselves into criminal enterprises because they are failing at what they really want to be, a true Islamic state with territory to administer. By every measure (except headlines), the group have lost ground, not only in physical territory, but also in their ability to recruit fighters.

But terrorists are still doing what they've always done very well, that is..

A director at Germany’s intelligence service (BND) was recently arrested for passing intelligence to Russia. What's interesting however is that his Russia born accomplice, Mr Arthur Eller who paid him $400,000 in cash from Moscow for his information has links to Nigeria. Arthur Eller was picked up by the F.B.I in Miami and put on a plane to Munich, where he was arrested by German investigators.

Mr Eller worked as a businessman with ties to a Nigerian registered petroleum trading company he ran alongside a Nigerian businessman.

Interesting 🤔

Nigeria's layered Maritime Domain Awareness Architecture is the most advanced in Africa. Comprising of an Air (manned and unmanned) Land and Sea triad, all integrated to deliver actionable intelligence to decision makers. Unmanned assets like Tekever AR3 and AR-500B can provide situation awareness to boarding teams. While the boarding team is approaching the starboard side of the vessel they can actually see what's going on on the port side of the vessel. This allows for swift decision making.

Commander U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet and Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO, Vice Admiral Thomas E. Ishee, during his visit to Nigeria. Nigeria has traditionally been one of the United States most strategic ally in Africa, going back decades. In the 80s the U.S saw Nigeria only in strategic terms, a bulwark against Soviet expansion in Africa and as a regional manager. This was the role that the U.S had hoped Zaire would play in Africa but their instability and lack of influence in Africa precluded such a role.

Spotlighting the most versatile Rotary Wing aircraft in the NAF inventory.

You've seen photos of an Mi-17 riding shotgun as troops advance. Its also capable of swiftly delivering or extracting troops into hot zones or taking wounded soldiers to safety in a Medivac role. It can perform the function of the Mi-35/24 helicopter gunship in an attack configuration, able to rain down bombs, rockets and anti-tank missiles on the enemy, as demonstrated in this video of an Mi-17 pulverzing Boko Haram positions on the fringes of Lake Chad.

Nigeria is modernizing it's military at a dizzying pace amidst increasing regional security challenges. The military has launched a comprehensive campaign to crush ISWAPs claim of invincibility by denying them a geographic haven in Lake Chad from which to hatch murder against Nigerians. To eliminate their ability to operate external. With a strong airforce Nigeria may soon have to unilaterally go after terrorists fighters where ever they may be in the region, in similitude to U.S airstrikes against insurgents anywhere in the middle east.