From Sola Ojo, Kaduna

As part of efforts to checkmate terrorists and bandits, Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) has secured a contract to produce new 52 units of Ezugwu-MRAP vehicles by the third quarter of 2021.

Director-General of DICON, Major General Victor Ezugwu, said  this was to improve the operational efficiency of the troops fighting terrorism, banditry and other emerging security threats in the country.

The DG, who disclosed this in Kaduna shortly after he declared closed the maiden three-day retreat for top management staff of the Corporation said feedback from the field has proven the efficacy of the vehicles, hence the demand for more.

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The DG said the Chief of Army Staff and Defence Minister have released their training plans for 2021 with a call on DICON to produce new equipment for the Armed Forces of Nigeria some of which would be operational and tactical in addition to the ones already in use in the theatres of operations.

“We are also looking at supplying police and other security agencies a lot of non-kinetic equipment for their operations. We have been up and doing and this year, we are going to test this equipment and once they pass the field trial test, we are going to have mass production of them.

“This is important to us because we need to produce equipment for the Armed Forces to bring this insurgency and other crimes to an end. We have a feedback mechanism for our vehicles from the field. So far so good our MRAP EZUGWU has been able to play the role it was designed for very well.

“We are also working on the production of other vehicles which are on a prototype for now. We are going into mass production this year because we are already having interest shown by the Army and others. We are hoping that as we produce, we will keep improving as time goes by based on the feedback we get from the field.”