Nigeria is, by some margin, the largest buyer of imported arms in West Africa. Between 2020 and 2024, the country accounted for 34 per cent of all arms imports to the subregion during a period when West Africa’s combined imports nearly doubled. Nigeria was also the largest African importer of Turkish arms over the same period — primarily combat helicopters — while the United States, China, Russia, and Israel have each supplied systems to the Nigerian military across the past decade.
The economic cost of this import dependency has become harder to ignore. Nigeria spent over ₦520 billion on arms and ammunition imports in 2024, with close to ₦484 billion recorded in the final quarter alone. That volume of capital outflow, concentrated during a period of acute foreign exchange pressure, has sharpened an argument Nigeria’s defence establishment has made for years: the country is paying a structural premium to remain reliant on foreign supply chains.
Whether that dependency can meaningfully shift has acquired new urgency following the announcement of a $200 million strategic partnership that its backers say can achieve what six decades of state-owned manufacturing could not.
The $200m Contender
This week, Nigus International Investment Limited — chaired by Nigerian businessman HRH Prince Malik Ado-Ibrahim — and Elmirate Investment LLC, a UAE-registered fund managed by Pankajj Ghode, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop domestic defence manufacturing in Nigeria.
The partnership will operate through a newly incorporated special purpose vehicle, Nigus Tactical Systems Ltd, and will sit within the regulatory framework of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON). The platform’s stated scope spans Class C defence manufacturing, tactical and ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) drones, ammunition and munitions production, armoured vehicles, satellite technologies, and counter-terror surveillance and cyber infrastructure.
Prince Ado-Ibrahim has spoken of building a platform that supports “meaningful technology transfer.” Ghode has described Elmirate’s role as connecting a “global network of defence, cybersecurity, aerospace and advanced technology partners.”
The credibility of the SPV cannot yet be assessed against an identifiable supply chain.
A Legislative Opening
The Nigus-Elmirate initiative would not have been legally viable five years ago. It is enabled by the DICON Act 2023, which represented a deliberate policy shift by the Tinubu administration toward leveraging private capital for domestic arms production.
The legislation gave DICON a dual role as both manufacturer and regulator, with powers to oversee all ordnance materials and to create formal pathways for private companies and foreign investors to participate directly in domestic production.
Since the Act came into force, DICON has pursued a pattern of institutional openness — one that has generated a succession of MoUs and, with them, structural questions. In July 2025, DICON signed an agreement with Homeland Protectors Supplies Limited, a Saudi Arabia-based security company, covering satellite systems, laser equipment, and border security drones.
That agreement arrived with unresolved compliance questions. Independent investigations at the time found that the company’s corporate registration status in Nigeria was unclear. Whether that ambiguity has since been addressed remains off the public record. Less than eight months later, the Nigus-Elmirate MoU covers substantially overlapping capability areas.
The Venture-Backed Incumbent
The most consequential tension in this shifting landscape comes from within the private sector itself. Terra Industries — a Nigerian defence technology startup founded in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka — operates a 15,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Abuja and has already signed its own MoU with DICON to establish a joint venture.
The overlap between Terra’s existing commercial operations and Nigus Tactical Systems’ stated mandate is difficult to overstate. Tactical drones, ISR systems, and autonomous security platforms are Terra’s core, deployed product lines.
The timing of the Nigus-Elmirate announcement sharpens the competitive dynamic. By mid-February 2026, Terra had closed total funding of $34 million, including a $22 million tranche led by Lux Capital with participation from 8VC and Nova Global, pushing its valuation into nine figures. The company has secured active government and commercial contracts, begun integrating weapon systems onto unmanned ground vehicles for the Nigerian military, and entered a manufacturing partnership with Saudi industrial group AIC Steel to establish a joint facility in Saudi Arabia.
For a company with Terra’s momentum — backed by established Silicon Valley defence investors, live contracts, and cross-border manufacturing infrastructure — the arrival of a $200 million SPV does not constitute an existential threat. It is, however, a structural complication.
Both entities are now pursuing DICON as their institutional anchor. DICON has not publicly addressed whether its regulatory framework can efficiently accommodate two or more private-sector partners pursuing near-identical mandates, or whether institutional bottlenecks will, in practice, favour one over the other.
The meaningful risk for Terra is not displacement but dilution: erosion of its relationship with DICON, and of the first-mover clarity that investors and procurement officials have thus far relied on. A well-capitalised SPV with Gulf backing and royal chairmanship wields different instruments of institutional access than a venture-financed startup. Relationships, access to senior officials, and political proximity operate alongside — and sometimes above — commercial track records in Nigeria’s procurement environment.
Terra has since announced expansion into other African nations, and has secured additional government and commercial contracts. Its recent partnership with Saudi industrial group AIC Steel aims to establish a joint manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia focused on surveillance infrastructure and security systems.