Air Defence System in National Security: Strategies for Meeting Air Defence System in Nigeria

Abstract

One of the most effective ways to defend national resources is to provide a secure airspace that will deny any aggressor a successful attack from the air. Nigeria is blessed with natural and human resources that require suitable protection. To ensure this, she had in the past acquired some air defence assets to monitor the airspace and provide some point defences for the resources and other strategic infrastructures of national interest. However, these defence facilities have become non-functional due to unavailability of spare parts and old age. Consequently, the undefended resources are now vulnerable to attack and national security may be endangered. It is against this background that the study fashioned out effective air defence system that would secure the airspace, protect the resources and safeguard national security. The study had four specific objectives. First, to review the current state of air defence system in Nigeria. Second, to identify the impact of air defence system in Nigeria and third to examine the problems militating against effective air defence system. Fourth, to proffer strategies for evolving effective air defence system that would safeguard Nigerian national security. The study adopted a descriptive survey method. It relied on data from primary and secondary sources. The sources of primary data were discussions and unstructured interviews with some senior officers of the armed forces. The secondary data sources were official documents from Defence Headquarters, Services Headquarters, books, journals, seminar papers and internet. The major findings of the study include that Nigeria's airspace is not secure because only a little portion of it is covered occasionally with civil surveillance radar. There is no appropriate policy on air defence system hence there is no proper coordination of the assets. Majority of the air defence assets have broken down and have become obsolete. It also identified incompatibility of equipment and lack of integrated communication system as constraints to effective air defence system. Three types of air defence system were considered. The study concluded that the nation needs an, effective air defence system and made some recommendations to implement it. An Air Defence Command should be established and an effective Air Defence System with modern surveillance/ early warning radars, fighter interceptors and Surface to Air Weapons (SAW) should be developed in phases. Funding, training and manpower requirement of the system should be accorded topmost priority.