Due to their unwillingness to purchase weapons and ammunition from the Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), the House of Representatives Committee on Defense has summoned the leaders of the nation’s security services.
Rep. Taofeek Ajilesoro (PDP-Osun) made the motion When Maj.-Gen. Hassan Tafida, Director-General of DICON, stood before the committee to defend the 2022 budget performance and 2023 budget request,.
Tafida claimed that other security services did not use DICON to acquire weapons and ammunition from the company, saying instead that they chose to shop elsewhere.
He claims that’s because there’s no law preventing or requiring them to buy weapons and ammunition from DICON.
“It is that perception that we cannot provide all the things they need, so they go outside and the law did not restrict them from going outside. So these are some of the things that need to be corrected.
“This is why DICON must wake up from the status it was to a new status. We are making effort to ensure that the military industrial complex is a reality in Nigeria,” he said.
Others in the private sector, he claimed, were already moving in and constructing factories, emphasising how crucial it was to start manufacturing both weapons and ammunition in addition to armoured personnel carriers.
All that was required, according to him, was the implementation of domestically produced technologies, saying, “if you wait to transfer technology from anywhere, you would not get it so we have to start producing ours.”
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Babajimi Benson, stated that before moving abroad, it was necessary to procure weapons and ammunition domestically.
He asserted that the legislature will give it legal teeth, requiring that all security agencies purchase their weapons and ammo from DICON.
“We can give it more legal teeth to ensure that it’s a law, I believe the way it should go is to ensure that we produce more arms locally as much as possible and also look at the possibility of enforcing it.
“This is because we do not see why it is only the Army that is patronising DICON, the Air force and Navy should also as a matter of urgency patronise DICON.
“And by this, we will save foreign exchange, we will improve our local technology and our youths will have some forms of jobs.
