Nigerian Air Force Takes Delivery of Two Airbus H125 Helicopters
The Nigerian Air Force has formally inducted two Airbus H125 light helicopters at its Lagos base, the latest piece of a five-aircraft rotary-wing delivery that also includes three Leonardo AW109 Trekker helicopters as the service works through a broader fleet renewal programme.
Photo: An Airbus H125 light utility helicopter of the type delivered to the Nigerian Air Force. Credit: USGS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The two helicopters, which arrived in Nigeria partly disassembled in early September, were put back together by Airbus technical staff at NAF Base Ikeja before being formally accepted into service with 355 Rotary Wing on 2 October, defenceWeb reported. Air Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke, the Chief of the Air Staff, said the service was committed to “developing the knowledge, partnerships and support systems” needed to get full operational value from the new aircraft.
A fleet renewal running on several tracks at once
The H125s are only one strand of a wider helicopter recapitalisation under way at the NAF. Three of ten Leonardo AW109 Trekker B helicopters ordered by the federal government arrived in Lagos on 15 September, with the remaining seven expected before the end of 2026, Nigerian outlets including the News Agency of Nigeria and Arise News reported. Twelve Bell AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters are also on order, and the NAF has already taken delivery of six Turkish-built TAI T-129 ATAK gunships in recent years — the subject of DefenceMENA’s earlier look at the AH-1Z buy and an earlier report on the Leonardo and Airbus orders.
The rotary-wing push sits alongside fixed-wing additions: the first of 24 Leonardo M-346FA jets from a roughly €1.2 billion 2023 order are due soon, and three Airbus C295 transport aircraft remain on order but undelivered. Nigeria has also been building out a separate unmanned fleet, detailed in DefenceMENA’s account of how Nigeria assembled its Turkish-Chinese drone inventory, and has pursued armour upgrades covered in DefenceMENA’s report on the VT-4 tank purchase.
What the H125 brings to NAF operations
The H125 — the latest member of Airbus’s long-running AS350 Écureuil (“Squirrel”) family — is a single-engine light helicopter prized for its high-altitude performance, low operating cost and ability to work from short, unprepared landing sites. It is used worldwide for utility, liaison, surveillance and light-attack roles, and several air forces fly armed variants fitted with door guns or pods. The NAF has described its own aircraft as intended for “a wide range of operational requirements,” including surveillance and tactical mobility, rather than for a single dedicated mission.
That versatility matters for a force that is simultaneously running counter-insurgency operations in the northeast against Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province remnants, supporting operations against banditry and kidnapping in the northwest, and covering a large, often under-resourced domestic airlift and surveillance workload. Nigerian reporting on the delivery has explicitly framed the new helicopters as reinforcement for the fight against “insecurity” rather than as platforms for a single new mission set.
Why it matters for Africa
Nigeria remains West Africa’s largest defence buyer, and how it sequences deliveries across multiple suppliers — Airbus, Leonardo, Bell, TAI — is a reference point for other air forces in the region managing mixed fleets on tight maintenance budgets. A light, low-cost utility type like the H125 is also a realistic benchmark for smaller African air arms weighing helicopter options between expensive military-specific gunships and civilian-derived utility aircraft; several regional forces already fly H125s or close AS350 relatives in parapublic and light-military roles. For Nigeria specifically, spreading rotary-wing capability across light utility, medium utility (AW109) and attack (AH-1Z, T-129) types is a deliberate hedge against any single supplier relationship becoming a bottleneck — a lesson other African militaries dependent on one or two suppliers have drawn from after past delivery delays and sanctions episodes.
Sources
- defenceWeb — “Nigerian Air Force receives new H125 helicopters from Airbus”
- News Agency of Nigeria — “NAF receives 5 new helicopters as FG accelerates airpower modernisation”
- Arise News — “NAF receives five new helicopters to strengthen operations against extremists”
