Nigeria will soon establish a domestic weapons factory in an effort to cut its dependence on imported arms, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.
The Defence Ministry, according to BBC, had been told to develop plans for a “modest military industrial complex,” the president, who came to power in May, said
Nigeria has been battling the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, for the last six years.
The U.S. has refused to sell arms to Nigeria citing human rights abuses.
President Buhari told a gathering of newly graduated military officers that Nigeria “must evolve viable mechanisms for near-self-sufficiency” in defence equipment that it usually imports.
On a visit to Washington last month, Buhari said that the U.S. had “aided and abetted” Boko Haram in the past by refusing to sell weapons to Nigeria.
A U.S. law prevents the government from selling arms to countries, which fail to tackle human rights abuses.
On Tuesday, a group of visiting U.S. Congress members said that Washington could lift its ban on shipping arms to Nigeria’s military if the country improved its human rights record.
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