On 21 May 2021, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) received three JF-17 Thunder combat aircraft from Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC). The NAF celebrated the induction as part of its 57th anniversary.
Nigeria announced that it would acquire the JF-17 in 2016. Since 2016, the Nigerian government has been allocating payments for the fighter purchase as part of its annual budgets.
It appears that the price of the current JF-17 order is $184.3 million US.[1] In 2018, PAC told the Pakistani cabinet’s Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) that the Nigerian does not involve loans or financing.
Since Nigeria is paying for the aircraft in cash, it seems that it is ordering the JF-17s incrementally based on available funding. Thus, it is likely that Nigeria will follow up its order with additional batches, possibly of the JF-17 Block-III and JF-17B dual-seat variants.
Interestingly, NAF pilots mentioned the use-cases of the Aselsan ASELPOD advanced targeting pod. Based on this information, it seems that the NAF’s JF-17s are configured along identical lines as the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) JF-17s and, potentially, may benefit from the same update track in the coming years.
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