Military spending in Nigeria fell by 38 per cent to $3.1bn in 2022 according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The institute disclosed in a report released on Monday that global military defence investment rose by 3.7 per cent to $2.24tn, on the back of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It stated that the Ukraine war had spurred the highest military investment since the cold war in Central and Western Europe.
The report said, “Nigeria’s military spending fell by 38 per cent to $3.1bn in 2022. Although Nigeria continued to face a wide range of security challenges (such as farmer–herder conflict and violent extremism) during 2022, the devastating seasonal floods that hit the country that year led to a substantial shift in the government’s budgetary priorities.
“Whereas 73 per cent of the 2021 supplemental budget was allocated to strengthening military capabilities, the 2022 supplemental budget had no funding for the military and focused instead on rebuilding infrastructure damaged or destroyed by the floods.”
On the global scene, the report said, “Global spending grew by 19 per cent over the decade 2013–22 and has risen every year since 2015. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a major driver of the growth in spending in 2022.
“Military expenditure in Europe rose by 13 per cent during the year, which was the largest annual increase in total European spending in the post-cold War era. The exceptional growth was largely accounted for by substantial increases in Russian and Ukrainian spending, but many other European countries boosted their military budgets in 2022. Spending increases in parts of Asia and Oceania also contributed to the global growth in 2022.”
Speaking on the report, the Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme, Dr Nan Tian, said, “The continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world.
“States are bolstering military strength in response to a deteriorating security environment, which they do not foresee improving in the near future.”
The report also said that global investment in the military accounted for 2.2 per cent of the global gross domestic product in 2022.
The five biggest spenders in 2022 were the United States, China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia, which together accounted for 63 per cent of world military spending.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the combined military expenditure of countries was $20.3bn in 2022; this was a decrease of 7.3 per cent from 2021 and of 18 per cent from 2013.
The drop in military expenditure in 2022 was primarily due to decreases in spending by the two largest spenders in the subregion, Nigeria and South Africa.
While Nigeria’s military spending fell by 38 per cent to $3.1bn in 2022, South Africa’s military spending fell for the second consecutive year to reach $3.0bn in 2022. Its spending was 8.4 per cent lower than in 2021 and 21 per cent lower than in 2013.
