Dare’s recklessly jaundiced piece

Our Navy’s NNS Absurdity written by Dare Babarinsa in the Guardian of September 9, 2021, is a recklessly jaundiced piece.

Aren’t there any mode of training for naval personnel on land? Are amphibious armies not sea- as well as land-competent fighting forces?

Does the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA, Kaduna not train NN personnel as well as the Command and Staff College Jaji?

This Dare Babarinsa, does he know that the US forces who rescued the American kidnapped and held for ransom somewhere in Sokoto recently, as well as the forces who traced and killed Osama bin Laden in a remote mountainous region of Pakistan were all naval personnel comprehensibly trained to fight both on land and at sea?  

Any land army without amphibious capabilities is neccessarily incomplete as a fighting force; just as any naval force without the capacity to fight wars on land is only half a fighting force.

Naval forces are today the most robust means of projecting national power anywhere on earth, to the extent that navies now have their own supporting airforce, while every naval officer is expected to be competent in fighting on land.

Whenever you hear of Anerican or British or Russian or Chinese battle groups, they are usually a naval fighting force with all the relevant battle ships and airforce capabilities and the ability not only to fight on sea, but to dominate  territory and populations on land. This is why American Navy SEALs train to acquire a very robust competence in fighting  wars in the desert.

Dare Babarinsa, in spite of his seeming respect for Kano, still appears to be highly jaundiced in his views, or else, he’s just plainly ignorant of modern trends in warfare.

Only fully integrated forces can fight and defend nation states these days.

A Nigerian Naval base in Kano isn’t an absurdity, please. It’s just another handy platform for ever more comprehensive training and retraining of the naval force for fighting to win under all imaginable conditions in the Nigerian terraine.

Yusuf Nagi Ahmad, 

153 Ibrahim Taiwo Road, 

Kano