Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Nigerian Army

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Country
  
Nigeria

Size
  
100,000 (2016)

Founded
  
1960

Type
  
Army

Headquarters
  
Abuja


Engagements
  
Congo Crisis Nigerian Civil War First Liberian Civil War Sierra Leone Civil War Conflict in the Niger Delta Boko Haram insurgency Northern Mali War Invasion of the Gambia

Commander-in-Chief
  
President Muhammadu Buhari

Motto
  
"Victory is from God alone"

Similar
  
Nigerian Armed Forces, Nigerian Air Force, Nigerian Navy, United States Army, Chad National Army

Profiles

The nigerian army


The Nigerian Army (NA) is the largest component of the Nigerian Armed Forces, and responsible for land warfare operations. It is governed by the Nigerian Army Council (NAC).

Contents

Nigerian Army How to fill out Nigerian army recruitment form 20162017 ASKNAIJ

Given its considerable investment in materiel, the Nigerian Army has generally been perceived as one of the better equipped fighting forces on the African continent. It bears the brunt of the nation's security challenges, notably the Boko Haram insurgency.

The original elements of the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) in Nigeria were formed in 1900. During the Second World War, British-trained Nigerian troops saw action with the 1st (West Africa) Infantry Brigade, the 81st and the 82nd (West Africa) Divisions which fought in the East African Campaign (World War II) and in the Far East.

Nigerian Army Nigerian army recruitment should I join the army or airforce

In Nigeria, from a force of 18,000 in infantry battalions and supporting units, strength rose to around 126,000 in three divisions by the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970 . In terms of doctrine, the task of the Federal Nigerian army did not fundamentally change: its task remained to close with and defeat an organised enemy.

Once among Africa’s strongest and a mainstay of regional peacekeeping, it has become a flawed force. The initially slow, heavy-handed response to the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency raised serious concerns, President Muhammadu Buhari has taken some steps to reverse the decline and has recorded significant gains against Boko Haram, but ongoing prosecution of former chiefs for graft have further deepened the military’s reputation as poorly governed and corrupt. The government and military chiefs, working with the National Assembly, civil society and international partners, need to do much more: implement comprehensive defence sector reform, including clear identification of security challenges; a new defence and security policy and structure to address them; and drastic improvement in leadership, oversight, administration and accountability across the sector.

Until recently, the military was under-resourced, with comparatively low budgets, disbursed irregularly and unpredictably. From 2000 to 2008, its budget was less than 3 per cent of overall government expenditure. From 2009 to 2014, it increased to an average of 7.2 per cent of government spending ($5-$6 billion); but, as in the past, this was still allocated disproportionately to recurrent expenditures, leaving very little for crucial capital investment.

The influence of individual personalities is generally greater in the armies of developing states, as they tend to have weaker institutional frameworks. Key personalities involved in Nigeria included then-Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo is particularly important due to his efforts to reorganise his command, 3 Division, during the civil war to improve its logistics and administration. The reorganisation he instituted made the Division capable of carrying out the offensive that ended the civil war.

The Nigerian Army fought the civil war significantly under-resourced; Obasanjo's memoirs chronicle the lack of any stocks of extra equipment for mobilisation, and the "haphazard and unreliable system of procurement and provisioning" which lasted for the entire period of the war. Arms embargoes imposed by several Western countries made the situation more difficult.

the Nigerian Army currently has over 6,000 officers and 96,000 soldiers and that the 'Order of Battle 2010' plan called for this to grow to 18,966 officers and more than 190,000 soldiers.

Structure

The Nigerian Army is governed by the Nigerian Army Council (NAC). The training centers are supervised by TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command).

Current formations include :

  • 1st Division, headquartered in Kaduna
  • 2nd Division (HQ Ibadan
  • 3rd Armoured Division HQ is Jos
  • 81st Division (Amphibious) HQ in Lagos,
  • 82nd Division (Airborne and Amphibious) HQ in Enugu
  • 7th Infantry Division (JTF-RO) HQ in Maiduguri
  • 6 Division HQ Port Harcourt
  • 8 Division HQ Sokoto
  • TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) HQ Minna.
  • Nigerian military forces abroad

    In December 1983 the new régime of the Head of State of Nigeria, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, announced that Nigeria could no longer afford an activist anti-colonial role in Africa. Anglophone members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) established ECOMOG, dominated by the Nigerian Army, in 1990 to intervene in the civil war in Liberia. Smaller army forces had previously carried out UN and ECOWAS deployments in the former Yugoslavia, Angola, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sierra Leone.

    The anti-colonial policy statement did not deter Nigeria under Generals Ibrahim Babangida in 1990 and Sani Abacha in 1997 from sending peacekeeping troops as part of ECOMOG under the auspices of ECOWAS into Liberia and later into Sierra Leone when civil wars broke out in those countries. President Olusegun Obasanjo in August 2003 committed Nigerian troops once again into Liberia, at the urging of the United States, to provide an interim presence until the UN's force UNMIL arrived. Charles Taylor was subsequently eased out of power and exiled to Nigeria.

    In October 2004, Nigerian troops deployed into Darfur, Sudan to spearhead an African Union force to protect civilians there.

    In January 2013, Nigeria began to deploy troops to Mali as part of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali.

    Nigeria claimed to have contributed more than 20,000 troops and police officers to various UN missions since 1960. The Nigeria Police Force and troops have served in places like UNIPOM (UN India-Pakistan Observer mission) 1965, UNIFIL in Lebanon 1978, the UN observer mission, UNIIMOG supervising the Iran-Iraq ceasefire in 1988, former Yugoslavia 1998, East Timor 1999, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) 2004.

    Nigerian officers have served as chiefs of defence in other countries, with Brigadier General Maxwell Khobe serving as Sierra Leone chief of staff in 1998-1999, and Nigerian officers acting as Command Officer-in-Charge of the Armed Forces of Liberia from at least 2007.

    Chiefs of the Nigerian Army

    Following is a chronological list of officers holding the position of General Officer Commanding (GOC) or Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

    Army equipment

    Despite a disproportionate emphasis on the materiel and sophistication of the Nigerian Armed Forces, and despite possessing some formidable hardware, the army has been hamstrung by technical deficiency and an exceptionally poor standard of maintenance. Its overabundance of foreign suppliers, including Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the former Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, has also complicated logistics. Calculating the size and scope of replacement inventories alone is impossible given the menagerie of equipment in use.

    The Nigerian Army maintains at least 82 different weapon systems and 194 types of ammunition, of 62 different categories, from 14 manufacturers worldwide.

    References

    Nigerian Army Wikipedia


    Similar Topics