Were I running for Nigeria’s president, procuring an aircraft carrier would be a central plank of my defence policy 

Ayo Akinfe 

[1] As a nation state, we have never really had a robust defence policy, mainly because we have never been faced with any external threat. However, with the growing regionalisation of our insecurity thanks to Islamic State of West Africa Province (Iswap), we need to review this stance 

[2] Nigeria’s main defence challenge is to secure her borders and prevent arms coming into the country. To do that, the country needs an aircraft carrier like yesterday 

[3] There are some 6m illegal firearms in Nigeria. They come in from across the Sahara and through the Niger Delta. Those that come in through Niger Republic are smuggled in from Libya in small quantities, which the huge container loads are smuggled in through the Niger Delta creeks 

[4] As we all know, these creeks are also used to smuggle out illegal crude oil. There is probably as much illegal Nigerian crude oil on the international market as there is legitimate petroleum 

[5] If we are serious about addressing all these problems, we need an aircraft carrier, similar to the UK’s recently-commissioned HMS Queen Elizabeth. This aircraft can hold 60 aircraft 

[6] Just imagine if Nigeria had an aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of say Rivers State with 60 planes on board. They could easily carry out 24 hour surveillance of our 853km coastline, checking every ship that enters and leaves our ports 

[7] These planes could also fly northwards, monitoring movements on our northern borders. I would expect them to launch missile strikes against and security threat such as Iswap and Boko Haram arms shipments 

[8] For such an aircraft carrier to be affordable, it has to be manufactured locally. For me, it is totally unacceptable that Nigeria does not have any shipyard. That is simply taking intellectual laziness too far 

[9] Nigeria does not have the resources for a lot of military equipment, so investment should be in a few pieces of kit like this that are multifunctional. HMS Queen Elizabeth for instance has the capability to accommodate up to 1,600 troops. We need about four or five such innovative and modular pieces of equipment 

[10] NATO actually mandates its members to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence. That is quite a lot and I do not see how Nigeria can afford to spend 2% of her $440bn GDP on defence. That would add up to $8.8bn, when our total budget is only about $40bn. The tragedy is we are not even debating this matter, so are light years away from finding a solution