On Thursday, the Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria Bill, 2023, received President Bola Tinubu’s assent.
Ajuri Ngelale, the President’s Special Advisor on Media and Publicity, signed a statement on Thursday that stated, “The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Act, 2023, repeals the previous iteration of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Act.”
“President Tinubu assents to Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria Bill,” read the announcement.
An Act of Parliament created the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria on August 1, 1964, and it was later amended as the DICON Act, which is contained in Chapter 94 of the Laws of the Federation, 2004.
The new version, sponsored by Babajimi Benson (APC — Ikorodu Federal Constituency), the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Defense, gives the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria the authority to: operate, maintain, and control subsidiaries and ordnance factories to manufacture, store, and dispose of ordnance and ancillary stores and material.
Additionally, it allows for the creation of the Defence Industry Technology, Research, and Development Institute, which will lay a sophisticated scientific and technological basis for Nigeria’s defense industry by utilizing the combined, multidisciplinary research of several military research institutes for an application that will eventually lead to commercialization and the creation of new military capabilities and technology in Nigeria.
In addition to offering a thorough regulatory framework for the production, distribution, storage, and disposal of defense articles in Nigeria, the Act encourages the creation of a sophisticated financing system that makes it possible for private capital to support R&D and production in the defense industry in a transparent and predictable manner.
