Tinubu assents bill on local military equipment production
President Bola Tinubu, on Thursday, assented to the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Bill, 2023.
“The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Act, 2023, repeals the previous iteration of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Act,” a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, read Thursday.
The statement was titled ‘President Tinubu assents to Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Bill.’
The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria was established on August 1, 1964, by an Act of Parliament and revised as the DICON Act in Chapter 94 of the Laws of the Federation, 2004.
Sponsored by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Defence, Babajimi Benson (APC — Ikorodu Federal Constituency), the new iteration empowers the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria to: operate, maintain, and control subsidiaries and ordnance factories to manufacture, store, and dispose of ordnance and ancillary stores and material.
It also makes for the establishment of the Defence Industry Technology, Research, and Development Institute to create an elaborate scientific and research-based technological foundation for Nigeria’s defence industry through the leveraging of combined, multi-disciplinary research from multiple military research institutes for an application that leads to commercialisation and the development of new military technology and capacity in Nigeria.
The Act provides a comprehensive regulatory framework for the regulation of the manufacturing, distribution, storage, and disposal of defence articles in Nigeria, and incentivises the development of a nuanced financing architecture that enables private capital to facilitate research, development, and production in the defence sector in a transparent and predictable fashion.
