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Nigeria ARMED FORCES
Although the military history of the West African
region
extends back a millennium or more, Nigeria's present-day
armed
forces, like those of most African states, are the direct
descendants of colonial military units. The officer corps
was
made fully indigenous by the mid-1960s, and in 1990 the
Nigerian
armed forces were among the largest and most professional
in
Africa. The military and political functions and
international
peacekeeping roles of the armed forces have expanded
significantly but remained subject to several constraints.
Nigeria was still heavily dependent on foreign arms but
had
embarked on a program of military industrialization.
Voluntary
military service and a large demographic base made
recruitment
easy, and training was highly professional. Nigeria's
long-term
challenge was to define its strategic interests and
military
missions more precisely and to achieve an appropriate
modernized
force structure to meet them.
Data as of June 1991
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