The Federal Government on Wednesday took delivery of 17 main battle tanks and high-grade artillery vehicles built in China for the Nigerian Army.
The purchase of the military war equipment it was learnt cost about $152million and the equipment could take as much as 12 persons each but does not have drone capability.
Speaking with the journalists after the delivery, Chief of Operation, Nigerian Army, Lieutenant-General Lamidi O. Adeosun said that “we are all here to witness the reception of the armaments the Government of Nigeria, through the Ministry of Defence has procured for the Nigerian Army.
“The process of acquiring this has been on for some time but thank God they are coming in as of today; you can see how serious the Federal Government of Nigeria is in making sure not only that the army is equipped as necessary, but to ensure that the insecurity problem we are having all over the country are tackled not only with trained personnel but with the required equipment.
“This is just a tip of the iceberg. Others are still coming; it is very important that you see that both the military and the government are really very serious to tackle the security problem across the nation.
“They are in different categories; we have the heavy tanks and the light tanks.
“And we have the two types of artillery heavy guns.
“They are all from China.
“They are very new ones as you can see for yourselves; in fact, the latest in technology in tanker artillery armament.
“Before today, the first set of 15 forty-feet containers that were offloaded from the ship, they were made up of spare parts, accessories for these equipment; those ones are already out of the port and on their way to their destinations.
“Those who will operate this have been trained in China; if not for the COVID-19 that is ravaging everywhere and the lockdown, we are still expecting more.
“Some of their trainers are going to join us to train more people.
“What you expect in the army is more robust operations to put behind us the menace of insecurity whether that of Boko-Haram, that of bandits or whatever.
“These are just the first batch of so many of them that are coming and you can see we have not even finish off loading this first batch; you can see the number of different types.
“I may not be able to give you the exact number, but you can see for yourselves.”
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