Military To Produce Arms Locally – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Ministry of Defence to map out a framework for the establishment of a modest military industrial complex that would be producing local weapons to meet some of the demands of the country’s armed forces. Buhari who spoke at the graduation ceremony of the National Defence College, said it was unacceptable that Nigeria currently over-depends on other countries for critical military equipment and logistics.
His words: “We must evolve viable mechanisms for near-self-sufficiency in military equipment and logistics production, complemented only by very advanced foreign technologies. “The Ministry of Defence is being tasked to draw up clear and measurable outlines for development of a modest Military Industrial Complex for Nigeria. “In this regard, it is to liaise with other strategic MDAs and industries to re-engineer the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to meet national military hardware and logistics requirements”. The President added that his administration had, since its assumption of office, reviewed the nature and character of Nigeria’s security threats and challenges. “We recognized first and foremost, the external dimensions of these threats and the need for international cooperation and common security mechanisms to tackle them”, he stated. Buhari implored the graduates and officers of the Armed Forces to put more effort in ensuring that the war against Boko Haram, terrorism and insurgency is won. He noted that, in this regard, his administration was “convinced that the best approach was to work within the framework of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) to mobilize a collective regional effort in the fight against terrorism and insurgency. “We must apply a comprehensive strategy and coordinate all elements of national power against terrorism and insurgency; we must show result-oriented leadership at all levels of military Command. We must set up an optimal organization to manage and sustain operational performance; and we must show confidence and winning mentality”, he further urged them. Assuring that the federal government under his watch would strive to meet the operational, logistic, training and welfare requirements of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, the president reaffirmed his commitment to ameliorating the hardships of people living in areas most affected by insurgency and terrorism. “We have the will, resolve and conviction to apply a comprehensive strategy and coordinate all elements of national power against terrorism and insurgency”, he assured. President Buhari extolled the quality of the National Defence College, saying it had fulfilled the vision of its founding fathers by becoming a strategic human capacity-building institution which makes credible contributions to Nigeria and other friendly countries. The President urged graduates of the college’s course 23 to resolve to make “a marked difference in your future deployments and contribute your quota to the evolution and implementation of national security, defence and military strategies. “You should be the source that lights up the environment wherever you find yourselves”, he told them.