Military profile
Nigeria Military Strength
Nigeria ranks #36 of 145 in the Global Firepower military strength ranking, with 135,000 active personnel. It spent $2.1 billion on its military in 2025 (0.9% of GDP).
Nigeria armed forces in numbers
Personnel
- Active military personnel
- 135,000#36 of 145
- Reserve military personnel
- 0#84 of 145
- Paramilitary forces
- 80,000#26 of 145
- Army personnel
- 80,000#44 of 145
- Air force personnel
- 18,000#38 of 145
- Navy personnel
- 2,500#75 of 145
Air power
- Total military aircraft
- 144#61 of 145
- Fighter aircraft
- 14#70 of 145
- Attack aircraft
- 24#27 of 145
- Military helicopters
- 52#64 of 145
- Attack helicopters
- 15#40 of 145
Land forces
- Tanks
- 177#68 of 145
- Self-propelled artillery
- 30#66 of 145
- Towed artillery
- 339#31 of 145
- Rocket artillery
- 37#58 of 145
Naval power
- Aircraft carriers
- 0#8 of 113
- Destroyers
- 0#15 of 113
- Frigates
- 1#49 of 113
- Corvettes
- 0#47 of 113
- Submarines
- 0#44 of 113
- Patrol vessels
- 109#8 of 113
- Mine warfare vessels
- 2#41 of 113
Finance
- Military spending
- $2.1 billion#64 of 156
- Military spending as % of GDP
- 0.9%#120 of 156
- Purchasing power parity (GDP, PPP)
- $1.01 trillion#25 of 145
Equipment and personnel: Global Firepower 2023 military strength ranking (2023). Spending: World Bank / SIPRI military expenditure data (CC BY 4.0).
Nigeria military spending 2010–2025
Military spending of Nigeria grew by 6% between 2010 and 2025, from $2.0 billion to $2.1 billion (current US dollars), and stood at 0.9% of GDP in 2025.
Armed forces of Nigeria
Branches and forces
Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN): Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy (includes Coast Guard), Nigerian Air Force Ministry of Interior: Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC); Ministry of Police Affairs: Nigeria Police Force (NPF) (2025)
Personnel
information varies; estimated 140,000 active Armed Forces (2025)
Service age and conscription
18-25 years of age for voluntary military service for men and women; no conscription (2025)
Equipment and suppliers
the military's inventory consists primarily of imported weapons systems from a range of countries, including Brazil, China, France, Russia/former Soviet Union, South Korea, Türkiye, and the US; Nigeria is developing a defense-industry capacity, including small arms, light armored personnel vehicles, and small-scale naval production (2025)
Deployments abroad
180 Sudan/South Sudan (UNISFA); 200 Gambia (ECOWAS); 150 Guinea-Bissau (ECOWAS) (2025)
Good to know
the Nigerian military is responsible for defending against external aggression, maintaining the country's territorial integrity, securing national borders, participating in international peacekeeping and other security missions, suppressing insurrection, and aiding civil authorities in restoring order, as well as other duties such as providing humanitarian assistance; its primary concerns are internal and maritime security; in the northeast part of the country, the military is conducting operations against the Boko Haram (BH) and Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham in West Africa (ISIS-WA) terrorist groups, where it has deployed as many as 70,000 troops at times and terrorist-related violence has killed an estimated 35-40,000 people, mostly civilians, since 2009; in the northwest, the military faces threats from criminal gangs--locally referred to as bandits--and violence associated with long-standing farmer-herder conflicts, as well as BH and ISIS-WA terrorists; the military also continues to protect the oil industry in the Niger Delta region against militants and criminal activity and since 2021, has deployed troops alongside other security forces to quell renewed agitation in the state of Biafra; maritime security concerns include piracy and the protection of natural resources in the Gulf of Guinea the Nigerian military traces its origins to the Nigeria Regiment of the West African Frontier Force (WAFF), a multi-regiment force formed by the British colonial office in 1900 to garrison Great Britain's West African colonies; the WAFF (the honorary title "Royal" was added later) served in both World Wars; in 1956, the Nigeria Regiment of the Royal WAFF was renamed the Nigerian Military Forces (NMF) and in 1958, the colonial government of Nigeria took over control of the NMF from the British War Office; the Nigerian Armed Forces were established following independence in 1960 (2025)
Military expenditure (% of GDP)
2024: 0.6% · 2023: 0.7% · 2022: 0.6% · 2021: 0.6% · 2020: 0.6%
Forces and service: CIA World Factbook (public domain).
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