The Chairman, Equipment and Protective Applications Nigerian Limited (EPAIL), Kola Balogun, says the rising of local players in Nigeria’s defence industries, will be a game changer in enhancing its military’s fighting power.
Balogun, who is also the Secretary, Defense Industrial Association of Nigeria (DIAN), said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said the local players understood the place of knowledge transfer as well as the methodology of getting knowledge across the borderline.
According to him, Indigenous defence producers had made giant strides in infrastructure that supports growth and the intuition of knowing the peculiarity of the kind 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 been able to produce light armoured vehicles, anti-mine, tactical walking talky, drones, ballistic helmets and vests, as well as 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 improvisation and we are now putting a bit of sophistication so that we can have 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.
Balogun said the local players would leverage the population and harness intelligence to be able to manage the confrontation of the 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 complacencies because we need to ensure that feet on the ground all the time, stand firm when necessary,’’ he said.