Molly Kilete

The second round of the Nigeria-Pakistan staff talk aimed at curbing terrorism and insurgency has opened in Abuja.

The two-day talk which is holding at the Defence Headquarters conference room is being attended by top military officers from the Nigerian Army, Navy, Air Force and their counterparts from the Pakistani Armed Forces.

In his address on the occasion, the Director-General of the Defence Industries Cooperation (DICON), Major-General Bamidele Ogunkale, said the 2-day talk is aimed at better positioning Nigeria as a formidable force in the African region.

Ogunkale, while noting that Nigeria and Pakistan signed a bilateral agreement on military cooperation in 2010, said the agreement was basically in the areas of training and education and sending observers for military maneuvers and exercises.

He listed other areas of the agreement as cooperation in defence technologies including platforms, weapon system, ammunition and military vehicles and cooperation between the two militaries amongst others.

He said the first round of the Nigeria-Pakistani talk which took place in Chaklala, Islamabad, deliberated more on training cooperation, counter-terrorism cooperation, invitation for participation in the professional, military competition, cooperation in counter IED and peacekeeping.

Continuing, he said “the following offers were made to the armed forces of Nigeria. They include life-extension programmes and a general overhaul of F-7NI aircraft, repair/overhaul of 14xC-130 aircraft propeller assemblies, maintenance of air defence radars, installation of special flight instrument display unit on NAF aircraft etc.

He also said that the “cooperation in military production was exploited in the areas of technical cooperation with Pakistani ordinance  factory and other Pakistani defence-related industries, development of telecom products in Nigeria, collaboration and transfer of technology and building capacity through the establishment of production lines for the production of communication equipment in Nigeria.”

Gen Ogunkale announced that 60 personnel from the Nigerian Army had been trained on anti-terrorists training (special), in Pakistan. He also said the Nigerian army had subscribed to selected army courses for the 2017/2018 training season from Pakistani government on a gratis basis and subscription to selected army courses for 2018/2019 training season on payment basis.

Also speaking, the leader of the Pakistani military delegation, Major-Mohammad Shafiq, while expressing hope that the second round of talks would take the bilateral relations to a new apex with visionary futuristic collaboration said: “Pakistan and its armed forces realty value our relations with Nigeria and its people.”