By Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Following the signing of Executive Order 5 on local content by President Muhammadu Buhari, Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) and National Metallurgical Development Centre (NMDC), Jos, on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard.
Director-General and Chief Executive, National Metallurgical Development Centre (NMDC), Jos, Plateau State, Engr Prof Linus Asuquo told newsmen shortly after taking the tour of DICON that, the time has come to move the country forward booking inward to be a producing and not consuming country.
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He said, “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 impressive 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.
“So, the time has come for us to move forward as we saw in the man in charge of DICON who has been able to do a lot in just one year.
“Now, the first thing is the exploration of minerals, mining and processing which is the key competence of my centre. We are processing the metal from the ore. We have discovered about 44 minerals in the country now.
“What that means is that we need to change our orientation in this country. We should pay attention to research and development. We know of a country that budgeted 4.3 percent of their GDP for research and development which is good for us to emulate”, he added.
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 we promote local content by looking inward to see how we could tap into the abundant human and natural resources in this country and DICON keyed into that order.
“We have visited NMDC and we have seen that they have the capability to help achieve Mr President’s order. We know how much we spend on the importation of raw materials before now.
“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.
“Our resources will stay in the country. The cost per unit of this EZUGWU MRAP is N71 million. The version of it imported from outside the country ranges between N250 million and N500 million.
“Using this as a basis going forward, you can see bat because it is a local content product, it has reduced the cost. With N200 million, you can afford three of this with a multiplier effect.
“Here in DICON, we have gone above 70 percent local contents in our production. With regards to human resources, it is 100 percent local content”, he said.
