Nigeria, South Africa resolve to follow procedure, agreement in future arms deal

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Ambassador Danjuma Sheni and his South African counterpart, Dr Sam Gulube have stated that the acquisition of military platforms and equipment for the Nigerian Armed Forces from South Africa would, henceforth, be governed by government-government agreement and procedure.

They stated that the relevant agencies in both countries would work on fine-tuning the procedures with a view to making acquisition of hardware faster and hitch-free.

Addressing newsmen after the end of a two-day meeting of the Nigeria-South Africa Defence Committee, DEFCOM, held between July 20 and 21 in Abuja, Sheni stated that the discussions were based on considerations that were beneficial to both South Africa and Nigeria.

“We have agreed on certain agenda items including but not limited to issues of military training, platform acquisitions; vehicles mainly for our military establishment.” We have emphasised in our discussions that given our level of security threats the acquisition of military hardware and platforms would be fast tracked with our South African brothers,” he said.

Sheni explained that other areas of the planned new military pact with the South Africa included training and technology transfer in the areas of space technology and military medicine, adding that: “In that context, we have also agreed that a technical team consisting of our experts from the various services will within a very short time go to South Africa to ascertain our requirements and needs.”

On his part, Dr Gulube assured Nigerians that his country would work with the Federal Government’s new military procurement policy, stressing that his country would also respect Nigeria’s new regulatory environment in the procurement of military acquisitions and capabilities.

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