Director-general of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), Major General Aniedi Edet, said the organisation has gone into partnership with over 50 foreign and local partners since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the amended DICON Act into law in November last year.
Edet said the partnership, especially with foreign investors, most of whom, are bringing in money and expertise, would turn around the face of Nigeria’s military industrial complex.
The DG who disclosed this during his routine “Durbar” engagement with members of staff of the corporation at its Ordinance Factory in Kaduna, appealed to them to desist from industrial actions such as their recent protests over certain allowances yet to be paid by the federal government.
He said such actions were not only capable of discouraging the corporation’s foreign partners from bringing their investments, but also constituted a threat to national security.
Gen. Edet who explained the misconceptions that only DICON is not on IPPIS payment platform and that only its personnel had not been paid 2019 minimum wage arrears, showed the staff documents indicating that several other federal agencies fall within same category.
He, however, assured the workers that the DICON Management under his leadership was constantly writing and reminding the Federal Ministry of Finance of such unsettled benefits.
Speaking to newsmen at the end of the engagement, Major General Edet said, “Staff engagement is very key to us at DICON and that is why we have been consistent on this kind of engagement we call Durbar.
This is because we have five management pillars in DICON which guide our management engagement. The first of management pillars is the issue of business orientation; we said we are going to be running DICON as a business-oriented enterprise.”