The presidential aide quoted Buhari as describing Nigeria’s current over-dependence on other countries for critical military equipment and logistics as unacceptable.
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Amosun who said this yesterday during the fly-out parade at Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Base, Abuja, held in his honour as he takes a bow out of the military after a 35 years of service, warned against complacency, saying terrorism is real and must be fought with utmost ruthlessness. “The Ministry of Defense is being tasked to draw up clear and measurable outlines for the development of a modest military industrial complex for Nigeria“.
“We must evolve viable mechanisms for near-self-sufficiency in military equipment and logistics production complemented only by very advanced foreign technologies”, said the president, a former military ruler.
In February, a joint force led by Nigeria and Chad managed to expel Boko Haram from its urban strongholds, which reduced the attacks in the following three months due to losses sustained by the terrorist group, but also forced it to downplay its operational activity and recognise the need to reorganize its supply lines, which were interrupted by the trade blockade on Lake Chad.
DICON was set up in 1964 to manufacture weapons from its factory in the northern city of Kaduna but production ground to a halt and the unit is now used mainly for civilian purposes such as tool-making.
It said that the CDS, in his response, thanked Britain for its concerns about insurgency in Nigeria and briefed Messenger about the new military command’s strategies aimed at wiping out the insurgents and their cells as soon as possible.
Buhari also pledged that his administration would cut short the long bureaucratic processes that Nigerian farmers had to go through to get any form of assistance from government.
Nigeria’s military has repeatedly said it needs better weapons to fight the militants, who have killed thousands and left about 1.5 million people displaced in Africa’s most populous country.
The US has vowed to help Nigeria defeat the insurgency but it is prohibited under law from sending weapons to countries that fail to tackle human rights abuses.
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Boko Haram’s brutality and in specific the mass kidnapping and enslavement of schoolgirls has shocked world opinion, however Nigeria’s personal safety forces additionally face criticism.
