Nigeria's president approves largest military expansion in recent times

Core point

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu has approved the recruitment of 28,000 additional soldiers and the creation of four new army divisions to address security challenges. The government aims to improve coordination, intelligence sharing, and response times with the new army divisions. Three new army headquarters will be established in north-east and central Nigeria, areas affected by Islamist militants, banditry, and farmer-herder clashes. President Tinubu also announced the recruitment of over 50,000 new police officers and allocated a record 5.41tn naira ($4bn; £3bn) to defense and security in the yearly budget.