A historical and sociological study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962–1970): politics, ethnicism and army influence

Akali Omeni

doi:10.1080/19392206.2022.2145830

A historical and sociological study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962–1970): politics, ethnicism and army influence

Akali Omeni^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of International Relations

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The “Quota System” of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representation, was one such issue. The paper examines how this system, along with the tumultuous politics of 1960s Nigeria, ethnicism and Army influence, shaped the NAF’s formative years.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	340-359
Number of pages	20
Journal	African Security
Volume	15
Issue number	4
Early online date	17 Nov 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/19392206.2022.2145830
Publication status	Published - 17 Nov 2022

Keywords

Nigerian Air Force
West Germany
Nigerian Army
Ethnic politics

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10.1080/19392206.2022.2145830Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Omeni_2022_AS_NAF_CC
Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Final published version, 748 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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AB - The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The “Quota System” of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representation, was one such issue. The paper examines how this system, along with the tumultuous politics of 1960s Nigeria, ethnicism and Army influence, shaped the NAF’s formative years.

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KW - West Germany

KW - Nigerian Army

KW - Ethnic politics

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ER -

A historical and sociological study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962–1970): politics, ethnicism and army influence

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Keywords

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