By Patriotic Nigerians living in Nigeria know that the country is currently going through a period of transition despite the multiple challenges it’s faced with, president Muhammadu Buhari has remained committed to strengthening the institutions of the nation, especially the military.
The year 2023 holds a lot of progress for the Nigerian military, according to a source called Defense News Nigeria; the Nigerian military can look forward to a great deal of progress that cuts across a new set of gears, weapons and military hardware for increased performance and lethality against the enemies of Nigeria.
Here’s what our service men and women can expect to find in their arsenal by 2023;
T-129 ATAK twin-engine, tandem seat, multi-role, all-weather attack helicopter from Turkish for the newly created Nigerian Army Aviation Corp.
Two Squadron (24) of M346-FA transonic light combat aircraft from Italian defence giant Leonardo, for the Nigerian air force.
A complete Squadron (twelve) of Bell AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters from the United States.
AR-500B shipborne unmanned helicopters from China. Four units have already been delivered.
On the 16th of September, Turkey’s Dearsan Shipyard laid the first keel of the two new offshore patrol vessels it will deliver to the Nigerian Navy.
A Dedicated satellite for the military. Nigeria wants to use its Space Force to track terrorists with its own eye in the sky. Satellites will enable the military to see suspicious movements from vast semi-arid communities. They can see and zoom in on suspicious movements. We have to remember we are talking about a theater that spans 180,000 km. That’s twice the size of Belgium. Even ISR aircrafts and drones struggle to track militants over such vast areas. The Defence Space Administration (DSA) has attempted to develop indigenous space technology for gathering intelligence images to support the Nigerian army’s operations. Both the DSA and Nigerian Air Force have also trained their personnel on how to handle the UAVs, analyse satellite imagery and map terrain.
In 2021 President Buhari approved $86.5 million for the space imagery programme, an increase of 54% from the 2020 budget’s $59.36m. Policing our porous borders and keeping tabs on ISWAP requires persistent high altitude surveillance from orbit.
