AFTER paying a condolence visit to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, over the demise of his brother, 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.
The launch which is scheduled for The 3rd quarter of this year, 2024 was announced in a press statement signed by the Group Company Secretary, Ms Mina Park-Okoloko on Friday.
According to the statement, SPO Group is incorporated and with subsidiaries on 3 continents, the SPO Group is an investment company powered by hedge/private equity funds, focused on investing in or acquiring privately owned companies in the field of defense, IT, financial services, technology, real estate, oil and gas, FMCG, port operations and other sectors, with significant business presence or operations in sub-saharan Africa. the company also specializes in structured lending.
“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 defense 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 defense 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 defense, energy, logistics, agriculture , law enforcement agencies like Customs , Immigration, Police etc.
“We are a private defense, military and intelligence contractors. With our various partners across the globe particularly with one of the largest tactical training centers in the world with R & D labs, we provide the following services:
1- Military and Tactical Training
2- Ship boarding Simulators and Security Vessels
3- Air Combats Simulators and Helicopters
4- Threat Assessment and Data Tracking
5- Weapons, Drones and Combat Equipments
6- Port and Airport Security
7- Pipeline Surveillance and Protection
In the Group CEO’s own words : “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 commercialize , because they do not like to commercialize 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 . I am a defense contractor and I can confidently tell you that we need the technologies that we are using to fight crimes or defend our territorial integrity to be made in africa .We need to design our own drones based on our environmental complexities .
“You would agree with me that drones that are made to perform in winter and other seasons might be a good option but they might not be the greatest compared to the ones from R & D to production done in africa exclusively . That’s what we are trying to change with SPO Dynamics Systems. Look at turkey , they have Bayraktar , Anka and many more, I believe Nigeria is more than ready and SPO is focused on the entire African defense market “ he concluded.