Nigeria is credited with 120,000 (Est.) total military personnel, 77, 108, 499 available manpower (ahead of Russia and Japan with 69,640, 160 and 53, 873,803 available manpower respectively), those fit for service stood at 43, 180,760, citizens reaching military age stands at 3,454,461.
Out of the total military personnel, 120, 000 are active while none are reserved, the reports stated.
The African top 5 is immediately followed by Angola (6th in Africa and 58th in the world) that lost its 2018 place to Ethiopia but is ahead of Morocco with a score of 0.8154.
Morocco has the 7th military power in Africa (61st in the world) with a score of 0.8244. It is followed by Sudan (with a score of 1.0051), the DRC (a score of 1.0631) and Libya (a score of 1.2349).
Let’s note that the global firepower ranking is based on five criteria namely, the number of serving military members, the naval force, fuel availability for military operations, the number of jet fighters, the defence budget and logistics flexibility.
According to this “power index”, the perfect score should be 0.0000 which is, in fact, impossible to attain. The farther a country is from this score, the lower it is in the index. The index does not take nuclear power into account and does not penalize landlocked countries that have no naval powers.
Let’s also note that many countries made significant progress. For instance, Côte d’Ivoire, the 21st military power in Africa jumped to the 104th place in the world (119th in 2018) while Mali (18th in Africa) slashed the 99th place. The world top 5 are the USA, Russia, China, India and France.
African ranking | Countries | World ranking |
1. | Egypt | 12 |
2. | Algeria | 27 |
3. | South Africa | 32 |
4. | Nigeria | 44 |
5. | Ethiopia | 47 |
6. | Angola | 58 |
7. | Morocco | 61 |
8. | Sudan | 69 |
9. | DR Congo | 72 |
10. | Libya | 77 |
11. | Zambia | 78 |
12. | Tunisia | 80 |
13. | Zimbabwe | 83 |
14. | Kenya | 86 |
15. | Uganda | 93 |
16. | Chad | 95 |
17. | Tanzania | 97 |
18. | Mali | 99 |
19. | Botswana | 100 |
20. | Cameroon | 102 |
21. | Côte d’Ivoire | 104 |
22. | Ghana | 108 |
23. | Mozambique | 109 |
24. | South Sudan | 113 |
25. | Niger | 116 |
26. | Republic of Congo | 122 |
27. | Madagascar | 124 |
28. | Namibia | 126 |
29. | Gabon | 128 |
30. | Mauritania | 129 |
31. | Somalia | 130 |
32. | Republic of Central Africa | 132 |
33. | Sierra Leone | 134 |
34. | Liberia | 136 |