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| Africa Subsaharan | |
| Nigeria to Step Up Local Arms Manufacture in Boko Haram Fight | |
| 2015-08-09 | |
| [AnNahar] Nigeria said Friday it would step up domestic arms manufacture for the military to cut its reliance on foreign weaponry in its fight with Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists.
Buhari told a graduation ceremony of the National Defense College in the capital Abuja that Nigeria's over-dependence on other countries for military equipment and logistics was "unacceptable," the statement said. "We must evolve viable mechanisms for near self-sufficiency in military equipment and logistics production complemented only by very advanced foreign technologies," he was quoted as saying. Buhari asked officials and industry leaders to work together to "re-engineer" the Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), a military department responsible for arms manufacture. 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. Buhari, who ruled Nigeria as a military strongman between 1983 and 1985, returned to office in May as the country's first opposition challenger to defeat an incumbent in a largely fair poll. His victory triggered a wave of optimism for oil-rich Nigeria, which has Africa's biggest population and economy but many deep and seemingly intractable problems. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |