The Equipment and Protective Applications Nigerian Limited chairman, Kola Balogun, says the rise of local players in Nigeria’s defence industries will be a game changer in enhancing its military’s fighting power.

Mr Balogun, also the secretary of the Defence Industrial Association of Nigeria (DIAN), said this in an interview in Abuja.

He said the local players understood the place of knowledge transfer and the methodology of getting knowledge across the borderline.

According to him, indigenous defence producers had made giant strides in infrastructure that supported the growth and the intuition of knowing the peculiarity of threats bedevilling the country.

He said that EPAIL was positioned to produce more advanced lethal and non-lethal weapons and ammunition for the country with government collaboration.

According to him, EPAIL has produced light armoured vehicles, anti-mine, tactical walking talky, drones, ballistic helmets and vests, and protective guard boots.

“Now, the game changer is the fact that we are now producing weapon holders that save the lives of our personnel from snipers. Those are the improvisations, and we are now putting a bit of sophistication into them so that we can have a higher manoeuvrability in all our vehicles when they are on the frontline operation.

“So, those are the domestication I was explaining to you. With local industry, we will be able to know what is good for us. By doing what is good for us, we will be able to conquer the enemies. You can’t administer a vehicle made for Europe to come and work in Nigeria. It doesn’t match.

“And those are the kind of things that we are trying to change the narrative,’’ he said.

Mr Balogun said the local players would leverage the population and harness intelligence to manage the confrontation of foreign influence that would not allow Nigeria to develop its defence capabilities.

According to him, Nigeria must come out to show that it is ready to move forward in its defence needs.

“It has to be purposeful and it has to be well determined, and the sound must resonate across all the formation. Army, Air Force, Navy, all of us must prepare and say yes, 60 years down the line, okay, it doesn’t matter, 10 years from now, we know what we are going to accomplish.

“We are not confronting anybody, but we want to maintain peace within our territory. We want to maintain peace within our region. Peace means you fortify yourself, put all the structure in place, and we reduce our level of complacency because we need to ensure that feet on the ground all the time, stand firm when necessary,’’ he said. 

Meanwhile, Mr Balogun pointed out that the failure of Nigeria to use the capacity of its Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) in 60 years has hampered the nations journey into self-sufficiency in defence capabilities.

“Now, looking backwards, 60 years down the line of DICON’s journey to where we are today, has not been impressive by virtue of what has been their output. Output is the sense of what they have been able to come out with compared with their counterpart in China and Brazil.

“I am very sure they set up Nigeria’s DICON and Brazil almost at the same time and if you look at what Brazil has been able to do with its own, it is very, very impressive. It is mind-blowing that they are producing helicopter, they are producing so many parts of defence target across the world and, we are supposed to have the similar threshold with that same organisation in Brazil.

“But however, the reverse is the case. One of those things I have realised is that some of us don’t believe in ourselves that we can do it, that we have what it takes to develop ourselves,’’ Mr Balogun explained.

Mr Balogun said Nigeria had started realising that it must be decisive and determined to change things, adding that everyone must make certain levels of sacrifice.

According to him, 60 years later, Nigeria is not producing helicopters or any major war arsenal, which are things it must have to change its game plan.

(NAN)