Nigeria to buy UAVs from Turkey

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Nigeria has announced that it will buy Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, Yeni Shafak newspaper has reported.

Following Morocco, Algeria and Rwanda, another African country Nigeria expressed its interest in Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 UAVs, the report added.

Nigeria-based Humangle newspaper said that Nigeria's Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawale announced that they want to acquire Turkish UAVs to be used against the Boko Haram terrorist organization, which they have been fighting for years.

"We will procure UAVs from a Turkish company for a more effective fight against terrorism," Matawale told the country's media.

Details of the deal were to be discussed during President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's visit to Abuja as part of his African tour on 18-20 October.

Matawale also noted that Turkish-Nigerian cooperation had been established during his recent visit to Turkey.

He stressed the importance of the Turkish-Nigeria Business Congress, where more than 20 Turkish companies expressed their willingness to invest in Nigeria.

Nigeria, Africa's densely populated country with 210 million people and the largest economy in the continent with a national income of $1 trillion, has an important market potential for Turkish defence products.

The Abuja administration, which has been fighting the terrorist organization Boko Haram for years, is sometimes helpless to thwart this organization's bloody attacks.

The effectiveness of Bayraktar TB2s both in the fight against the PKK and in the Libyan, Karabakh and Syrian wars seems to have attracted Nigerian officials, the report stressed.

Along with the UAVs, the sale of smart missiles manufactured by ROKETSAN, which is the striking power of UAVs, will be on the agenda during the visit, Yeni Shafak concluded.