This new deal has been justified as necessary for Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, the Salafi-Jihadist insurgency that has claimed more than 30,000 lives and displaced more than 2.5 million people. However, the sale of the “Super-T’s” is financially irresponsible, operationally and tactically unnecessary, and may actually undermine the counter-terrorism campaign if improperly deployed.
The cost of the twelve planes is expected to constitute half of the annual defense budget of Nigeria. This at a time when the country’s economy is struggling to climb out of a recession, it is already struggling to pay the salaries of soldiers on the frontlines, and there is a significant funding gap for the humanitarian programs in the country’s war-torn North. Read full in Defense One