http://saharareporters.com/2017/04/17/%E2%80%8Anigeria-us-600million-a29-super-tucano-scam

Link to original medium post ---> https://medium.com/@lecaester/look-what-you-made-me-do-the-600-million-dollar-a29-tucano-scam-9d1930290cc9

The A-29 Super Tucano Acquisition

The Nigerian government, currently led by Muhammadu Buhari, has been trying to procure counter-insurgency aircraft with extended loiter time for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and for CAS (Close Air Support) and somebody somewhere has decided on the A-29 Tucano. There is, of course, no idea about how the equipment is chosen, Nigerian defense acquisitions is 10 parts dark arts and 15 parts BS, with the left hand not knowing what the right hand did and analysts having to figure assets out when mandatory UN reports come back from the suppliers. This unnecessary secrecy in procurement is probably to facilitate corruption, with inflated numbers coming back and reports of cash buys of electronics and even small arms. There have even been reports of 7.62mm ammunition being procured on the black market for North East counter-insurgency operations. But I digress.

It was reported on April 10 by various sources that the US has decided to sell Nigeria 12 A-29 Embraer Super Tucano’s, the planes are powered by a Pratt and Whitney PT6A turboprop engine, and the variant being sold is co-developed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation, all these lovely Yankee bits have given the aircraft dual Brazilian and American ownership. The US has kindly decided to sell 12 units of this Aircraft to Nigeria, despite the human rights violations by its government, for the pittance of 600 million United States Dollars. Leading to a unit cost of 50 million United States dollars per plane, this is for a turbo propeller engine launched in 2003.

I would love to tell you about the two 12.5mm cannons, the 700 horsepower PT6A engines, the rocket pods that it can carry that will rain hellfire on Shekau’s head, I would love to tell you how many hundreds of Boko Haram insurgents will be detected and sent to an early grave due to these amazing capabilities of this awesome turboprop plane, however I cannot. Since its one of the most one-sided acquisitions I have ever seen, and obviously kickbacks must be flowing from someone to somewhere for this deal to be made, this is great business for the American defense industry, anyone that can find a buyer for 10 million dollar base aircraft, even with avionics, parts, and training of pilots (note, of course, we do not know the details of the procurement) for 50 million dollars deserves to be made vice president of the company, oh la la , the money is making me see things. Let’s do a very rough comparison.

The Sukhoi 25 has an approximate price of 25 million dollars per unit cost; Turkey purchased block 50 F 16’s for 57 million dollars apiece from Lockheed Martin, Egypt expressed interest in Mig 29’s at 44 million USD per unit, and eventually bought Rafales from Dassault at 250 million per unit. With the Rafale considered a 4th gen or a 4.5 gen fighter.

Some other links..

https://qz.com/960597/heres-the-case-against-trump-selling-super-t-jets-to-help-nigerias-batte-with-boko-haram/

The cost of the twelve planes is expected to constitute half of the annual defense budget of Nigeria. This at a time when the country’s economy is struggling to climb out of a recession, it is already struggling to pay the salaries of soldiers on the frontlines, and there is a significant funding gap for the humanitarian programs in the country’s war-torn North.