The Federal Government on Tuesday pledged to reposition the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to make it competitive to attract local patronage of its products.
Vice President Namadi Sambo made the pledge in Abuja at a meeting of the Presidential Committee on the Review of the Structure, Operations and Activities of DICON.
He expressed the hope that DICON, when repositioned, would provide the accoutrements and other hardware needs of the nation’s armed forces, paramilitary services and the police.
The vice president also called for synergy between DICON and its primary consumers.
He said the committee had embarked on the development of a framework to ensure that the corporation met its? objectives of ensuring the local production of the needs of the country’s security forces.
Sambo expressed his desire to visit DICON, the Army Research and Development Centre in Abuja, the Naval Dockyard and the air force aircraft maintenance facility in Lagos.
He congratulated the Nigerian Army for developing and manufacturing a wholly Nigerian made Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), which was recently inaugurated by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Earlier, the Director General of DICON, Maj.-Gen. Suleiman Labaran, expressed gratitude to Jonathan for setting up the committee, chaired by the vice president.
He said DICON had the capacity to produce different types of military hardware and other accessories.
He added that the corporation also produced industrial machine parts for the Kaduna Refinery, noting that it also had a world class welding facility and could produce ballot boxes.
The committee, which was inaugurated by Sambo in October 2011, has the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and the Minister of Finance as members.
Other members are the Ministers of Works, Interior, Trade and Investment,
Defence, National Planning, Police Affairs, Aviation and Science and Technology and Transport.
The rest are the Director-General of DICON, the Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement, the Director General of the Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission and the Commandant of NDA.
Representatives of the National Security Adviser and the Inspector-General of Police and Representatives of all Service Chiefs are also members of the committee, while the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation serves as the Secretariat. ?
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