Someone said LandCruiser and I said, even that won’t be news because they have those aplenty, ditto LandRovers, deployed for UNAMID, UNMIL and MJTF service. NA get hundreds of those every quarter from MoD and by way of tokens of operational support from various state governments who give them to military and police units in their states to boost morale. Nice – who is complaining? To think that they exist in these numbers!

An array of three Alvis Scorpion light tanks and six of the newfound Spartan APCs AGAIN.

On the first day, we came away with two photos – one culled from a NA publication and the other, inside a tank shed nestled beside a Shilka SPAAG. What my sources told me was that these were almost certainly drawn from British surplus stocks. None of us came away with any records of Spartan APCs holdings. Thereafter, I checked through the most reliable logs that I know of(eg UN Register, SIPRI, IISS Military Balance) and checked with those who log these things as well and going back to the 1980s, we only came away with, on current holdings, Alvis Saracen APCs(10), Alvis Saladin AFVs(16), Alvis Scorpion light tanks(150) and tracked Alvis Scimitar recce vehicles(5). It soon emerged that those were Alvis Spartan APCs…novelty to me and to all Nigerians who saw the photos.

Only last week, we drew your attention to first-ever sightings of an APC never before seen in Nigerian Army service.

Scorpion tanks military futuristic