Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The latest drone news
•Condoles with NSA over brother’s death
The Group Chief Operating Officer of SP Offshore Group, Obafemi Adekunle, has announced the company’s plan for a military grade drone manufacturing plant launch, with cutting edge technologies, a first of its kind in Nigeria.
A statement by the company further said that Adekunle paid a condolence visit to the National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu, over the demise of his brother.
The launch which is scheduled for the 3rd quarter of this year, was announced in a press statement signed by the Group’s Company Secretary, Ms Mina Park-Okoloko.
According to the statement, SPO Group is incorporated and with subsidiaries on three continents.
“Our deep local knowledge and broad relationship network, affords us an easy access to capital, proprietary deal flow and key sector insight. SPO primary objective is to achieve attractive returns while maintaining a strong risk management strategy.
“The defence industry in Africa is a strategic and economic asset, and from a socio-economic point of view, the industry contributes significantly to sustaining the military capabilities of African states. It is growing rapidly, with Algeria, Nigeria, and South Africa, already making intra-regional military equipment sales.
“Africa needs a capable defence industry for strategic reasons because of the instability in the continent and the need to be able to protect against the effect of the instability from the Middle East.
“ It is to that that effect that SPO Dynamics Systems was created. With a projected production capacity of 1,000 drones monthly, making it the largest drone plant in Africa.
“The company aims to transform industries like defence, energy, logistics, agriculture, law enforcement agencies like customs , immigration, police etc,” the statement said.
It listed the services provided by the firm as: Military and Tactical Training, Ship boarding Simulators and Security Vessels, Air Combats Simulators and Helicopters, Threat Assessment and Data Tracking, Weapons, Drones and Combat Equipment, Port and Airport Security as well as Pipeline Surveillance and Protection.
“The west doesn’t make drones based on Africa’s needs. China, Israel, the United States and others develop and test their drones first for their security issues and decide on the features to commercialise , because they do not like to commercialise all their researches and innovations. We now purchase or order these drones to adapt them to our terrain.
“Sometimes they wait 10-20 years to make some technologies available on the market , which put us at disadvantage mostly because imagine being 10-20 years behind when we could have developed our own technology during that time .
“Also they are not bound to sell those technologies to us . It’s at their discretion and subjected to many factors, sometimes out of our control, which puts us in a vulnerable state when we are fighting a war and our people are dying. We have seen it happen during President Goodluck administration.
“One thing about cutting edge technology is that they need to be extremely precise. Their accuracy determines their efficiency ,“ he said.
