Nigeria’s air war is expanding. The more important question is whether increased flying is producing security that lasts after the aircraft return to base.
As Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke approaches his first anniversary as Chief of the Air Staff, the Nigerian Air Force can point to substantial operational activity, fleet modernisation, training and infrastructure investment. Between November 2025 and September 2026, the NAF reports flying more than 2,900 sorties and accumulating over 6,100 flying hours while consuming close to 10 million litres of aviation fuel.
Those figures demonstrate operational tempo. They do not, by themselves, demonstrate strategic success.
The challenge facing Aneke’s leadership is therefore moving the NAF from measuring how much airpower Nigeria generates towards demonstrating what that airpower achieves.
From sorties to strategic effect
A sortie is an operational flight. It can involve surveillance, reconnaissance, close air support, interdiction or a precision strike against an identified target.
But sorties are inputs rather than outcomes. The destruction of a terrorist position can be tactically successful while producing little lasting strategic benefit if surviving fighters simply relocate, reorganise and return weeks later.
The real test comes afterwards. Can ground forces occupy and hold territory? Can intelligence agencies identify replacement networks? Can farmers return safely to their land? Can traders use roads without kidnapping or extortion? Can displaced communities return home?
Airpower is particularly effective at surveillance, rapid concentration of force and attacking targets difficult for ground units to reach. What aircraft cannot easily do is permanently control territory.
This explains why Aneke’s emphasis on cooperation with surface forces is strategically important. Nigeria’s counter-insurgency problem ultimately requires an integrated air-ground campaign.
Airpower Must Create Space for Ground Forces
The most effective sequence is straightforward: intelligence identifies the threat, aircraft disrupt or destroy it, ground forces exploit the opportunity, and security agencies maintain control.
Break any part of that chain, and the enemy gains an opportunity to regenerate. Nigeria has experienced insurgencies in which armed groups disperse under military pressure before reappearing elsewhere. Air strikes can destroy camps, vehicles and concentrations of fighters, but sustained security requires denying adversaries the ability to rebuild.
The NAF’s growing surveillance and unmanned-aircraft capabilities could become particularly important here. Persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance should allow commanders to move beyond attacking visible camps towards understanding networks: supply routes, staging areas, commanders, logistics, movement patterns and relationships between armed groups.
Modern airpower is therefore increasingly about information as much as explosives.
Security has an economic measurement
For BusinessDay readers, the effectiveness of Nigerian airpower should also be measured economically. When insecurity prevents farmers from reaching agricultural land, food production declines. When highways become kidnapping corridors, transportation costs rise. When businesses require additional private security, operating expenses increase.
Successful security operations should eventually reverse these effects. A more useful strategic measurement of airpower would therefore ask whether previously insecure roads remain open, agricultural communities return to production, markets reopen and commercial transportation becomes predictable.
A destroyed terrorist camp represents a tactical achievement. A farming community remaining secure six months later represents something closer to strategic success.
The hidden cost of operational tempo
The NAF’s reported consumption of almost 10 million litres of Jet A-1 also demonstrates how expensive sustained air operations can become. Every additional ₦100 per litre would theoretically add approximately ₦1 billion to expenditure at that volume, assuming consumption remained unchanged.
Fuel is only one component. Aircraft require spare parts, inspections, engines, tyres, specialist equipment and trained technicians. Flying aircraft harder also accelerates maintenance requirements.
Nigeria therefore faces the classic airpower problem: buying aircraft is easier than sustaining them.
A combat aircraft sitting unserviceable on an airbase contributes nothing to national security regardless of its acquisition price. Aircraft availability should consequently become one of the most important measures of NAF performance.
Modernisation creates its own challenge
Nigeria is simultaneously expanding its fleet. Five helicopters were delivered in September 2026, three AW109 Trekker Bs and two H125s, while the broader modernisation programme includes M-346 aircraft, AH-1Z attack helicopters, transport platforms and additional unmanned systems.
But procurement announcements should be separated from operational capability. Some major programmes also predate Aneke’s tenure. Nigeria’s plans to acquire 24 M-346 aircraft and ten AW109 Trekkers were publicly reported in 2024.
Aneke should therefore be judged less on announcing inherited acquisitions and more on whether aircraft are successfully delivered, crews trained, weapons integrated and maintenance systems established.
A larger fleet also means a larger logistical footprint. Aircraft acquired from different manufacturers require different spare parts, training systems, software, weapons and technical expertise. Fleet diversity can increase capability while simultaneously increasing sustainment costs.
Nigeria must therefore avoid building an impressive collection of aircraft that becomes increasingly expensive to keep operational.
Building Nigerian Aerospace capability
Fleet expansion nevertheless creates an industrial opportunity. Nigeria should use procurement to strengthen domestic aerospace capability.
Maintenance, component repair, simulators, software support, ground equipment and eventually selected manufacturing can progressively move expenditure into the domestic economy.
Technology transfer should consequently be judged by capability rather than ceremony. The important question is not whether Nigerian engineers attend foreign courses. It is whether, several years later, Nigerian technicians can independently perform certified maintenance that previously required aircraft or components to be shipped overseas.
Every maintenance function transferred to Nigeria can potentially reduce downtime, foreign-exchange exposure and dependence on foreign contractors.
People matter as much as aircraft
The NAF reports more than 550 personnel participating in international training and professional engagements and over 6,000 receiving domestic training.
This human investment may ultimately matter more than individual aircraft purchases. Modern air warfare requires pilots, intelligence analysts, engineers, weapons specialists, drone operators, cyber personnel and communications technicians.
Infrastructure and welfare matter for the same reason. The NAF says 145 of 284 approved infrastructure projects have been completed, with another 139 ongoing. Accommodation, healthcare, education and utilities can contribute directly to retention and morale.
A technologically sophisticated air force cannot function without experienced people willing to remain in service.
Civilian protection is operational strategy
The expansion of Nigerian airpower also increases responsibility. The NAF has highlighted measures including strengthened safety management and civilian harm mitigation and response structures.
These mechanisms should be treated as operational capabilities rather than public-relations exercises.
Civilian casualties can destroy trust, reduce intelligence cooperation and create grievances that armed groups exploit.
Precision therefore means more than possessing guided weapons. It requires accurate intelligence, disciplined targeting, post-strike assessment and credible investigation when allegations arise.
Protecting civilians is both a moral obligation and a counter-insurgency requirement.
Aneke’s second-year test
Aneke’s first year can reasonably be characterised by high operational tempo, continuing modernisation and institutional investment.
The second year should increasingly be judged by consolidation. Can aircraft availability remain high? Can maintenance keep pace with acquisitions? Can intelligence reach ground commanders quickly? Can air and land forces prevent militants from returning after strikes? Can Nigeria build more of the technical support system domestically?
Most importantly, can military pressure produce conditions in which Nigerians can safely farm, trade, travel and invest? For BusinessDay readers, that is the distinction between air activity and airpower.
Nigeria does not ultimately need more sorties for their own sake.
It needs sorties that contribute to territory being secured, roads remaining open, communities returning home and economic activity continuing without permanent military intervention.
The defining measure of Aneke’s tenure will therefore not be how often the Nigerian Air Force flies, but how much lasting security remains on the ground after its aircraft have flown home.
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