The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) and the National Metallurgical Development Centre (NMDC), Jos, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to promote local contents in the production of ballistic products following the signing of Executive Order 5 on local content by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Director-General and Chief Executive of NMDC, Engr Linus Asuquo, who spoke to newsmen shortly after taking the tour of DICON, said the time has come to move the country forward to be a producing rather than a consuming country.
“We are looking at indigenous materials for everything we need in this country because we cannot continue to be a consuming country. We need manufacturing in other to make progress and that is the purpose of our coming to DICON. We are very impressed with what we saw – using indigenous materials to achieve so much.
“We are going to do more on research and development to bring out indigenous materials for them so they don’t depend on China or any other country again and that means a lot of employment and revenue opportunities for the country”, he said.
Also speaking, the Director-General of DICON, Major General Victor Ezugwu, said his resolve to invest his time and energy on local production of ballistic products for the military was based on President Buhari’s directive on local production.
According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari through Executive Order 5 has tasked all the military department and agencies in Nigeria to make sure they promote local content by looking inward to see how they could tap into the abundant human and natural resources in the country, adding that DICON has keyed into that order.
“The bottom line of the MoU signed today is that it will give us the Nigerian version of all the raw materials which is going to help us because, once we spend less on importation within the country, we will have more to offer the country”, he said.
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