Defence Corporation, Firm Strategise Against Africa’s Defence Challenges

The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) and the Nigeria Security Exhibition and Conference (NISEC) have partnered to develop innovative solutions to Nigeria and Africa’s safety challenges.

The partnership aims to leverage expertise and resources to tackle security threats and enhance national and regional stability.

At a press conference in Abuja, director-general of DICON, Maj-Gen. Babatunde Alay, said the partnership, which will culminate in the 2025 Nigeria International Security Conference and Exhibition, aligns with the DICON Act 2023.

He said the Act empowers DICON to operate as a modern defence manufacturing entity, regulate the defence industrial sector, promote defence research and development and engage domestic and foreign partners to advance sustainable defence capabilities and technology transfer within and outside Nigeria.

Alaya, who was represented by DICON’s director of Engineering Services, Commodore Adedotun Ogundiran, said the expo represents a forward-looking step towards strengthening Nigeria’s defence industrialisation, aiming to establish the country as a central hub for defence research, manufacturing, and technological development in Africa.

He said, “In line with this mandate, the expo will serve as a strategic platform to showcase Nigeria’s evolving defence industrial capability while opening opportunities for investment, industrial partnership, research facilities, and lunar capacity development,”

According to him, the event would bring together a broad range of stakeholders, including leaders of parliamentary organisations, policymakers, tech companies, defence industries, private sector innovators, academia, regulatory institutions, and research bodies, among others.

Earlier in his remarks, the chief executive officer of NISEC, Frank Ohwofa, described the theme of the event, “Future Wars: Operational Resilience and Force Build-Up Capabilities,” as not a mere “speculative exercise but a strategic imperative” borne out of the present evolution of threat dynamics facing the world, particularly Africa and Nigeria.

He said as Nigeria’s defence industries move from assembly to innovation through partnerships, technology transfer, research and development to produce tailored solutions, it must embrace technology Integration that leverages artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and networked warfare for intelligent decision making.

“It also means pursuing Collaborative Build-Up. We seek strategic partnerships for co-development and joint ventures. These partnerships must respect our sovereignty and build mutual capacity,” Ohwofa said

According to him, the current security threats are asymmetric warfare, which he said has defined the nature of the battlefield as a dangerous convergence of domains: cyber, space, information, and robotics, which defines the modern conflicts being fought with algorithms, drones, and cognitive warfare just as fiercely as with tanks and rifles.