Nigeria Erupts As Arms Exporter to the UN, Europe?

It is almost a week now since defence magazine, defenceworld.net, broke the story but it doesn’t appear to have caught fire in the Nigerian media yet. But the big story is that Belarus is buying armoured vehicles from the privately owned Nigerian defence manufacturing company that goes by the label Proforce. What it means is Nigeria joining South Africa in arms manufacturing and export on a noticeable scale although the paradox is that it is not the state Defence Industries Corporation, (DIC) that came of age at last like its Brazilian counterpart.

As is also being mentioned, there is something of a reversal of the trends in that Nigeria is making money from selling arms to the West/Russia as against the old order where Africans buy weapons from the West to kill themselves in the name of religion and ethnicity. It doesn’t matter that it is a Nigerian entrepreneur making the money. Once the weapons go out of Nigeria, it becomes a national matter irrespective of the individual concerned. In this case, the beneficiary is given by the magazine without any title as just Adetokumbo Ogundeyin, the CEO and founder of Proforce.

The interesting point observers are picking up is how Proforce products are not like the CKDs (Completely Knocked Down parts) of yesteryears when all the parts of the vehicles manufactured in Nigeria were imported. It’s believed that 70% of the parts of Proforce’s vehicles are sourced locally. What is also further noted is that the company buys steel sheets, which are now produced locally, creates its own designs and reworks the flat sheets based on its designs.

The details as regards when the contract and who signed for Belarus are unknown but the video version of the story, (https://www.defenseworld.net/news/31566/Nigeria_s_Proforce_to_Supply_Armored_Vehicles_to_Belarus#.Yjp4QcB4XYU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzgc9sE9S_4), mentions the UN, European countries and one African country as extant customers of Proforce.

Proforce is said to have “introduced Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles in December 2021. The Proforce PF Viper is a FAST ATTACK Infantry Assault Vehicle (IAV)”, described as a lighter and maneuverable version of a MRAP and “designed to provide ballistic protection, ricocheting capability and mobility”.

The PROFORCE PF Viper, said the magazine, is integrated with a fully independent suspension system which provides controlled mobility for all terrain. “The monocoque body structure and optimized sidewall angles are designed for increasing the ballistic protection of the vehicle”.

Commentators are connecting this development with what Innoson, Nigeria’s manufacturer of vehicles for civilian use, is also doing, both of them operating at a level far beyond “the failed CKD-type of vehicle manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s”.

An important point being stressed is how the governor of one of Nigeria’s 36 states, Prof Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State assumed power insisting on privileging Innoson vehicles and ‘Made in Anambra’ products in state activities.

A new phase in how to approach industrialisation might have quietly started after the death of state interventionism crippled by wholesale adoption of Structural Adjustment Programme, (SAP) in favour of private initiative. The question is whether it is the private initiative of SAP that is manifesting now or a different impulse. The second question is whether the ever quarrelling Nigerian elite can reach any consensus on reading what the Innoson and Proforce examples signposts.

In the past, intra-elite quarrels did not stop elite consensus on national issues. Of recent, that has not been the case, the roots of which many believe to have been the major consequence of the destabilization of the civil service whose well groomed Super Permanent Secretaries were a moderating force on the politicians until the retrenchment in the mid-1970s. Thereafter, the politicians went haywire. It is such that nobody can be sure if Nigeria is in a position to muster the national consensus to follow the magazine’s advice that the country “should try to complete the abandoned iron and steel project at Ajaokuta to boost the capital goods sector and help the development of downstream industries”.

If an informed and elevated president is, magically, elected in 2023, this may help Nigeria.