A Nigerian private security company handed over 15 semi-ballistic gunboats to the Nigerian military on 14 May 2026, at a commissioning ceremony at the Nigerian Navy shipyard in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The boats were procured and donated by Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited (TSSNL).
The Superintendent of the Naval Shipyard, Rear Admiral I. Ubani, appreciated Tantita for the partnership. He said, “This project reflects our drive to deepen local content and advance indigenous shipbuilding”.
Following his opening remarks, military officials received the vessels on behalf of the Chief of Defence Staff, with Major General E. E. Emekah accepting on behalf of the Army, while Brigadier General Efe Edafioghor (rtd), representing Tantita’s Managing Director, High Chief Engr. Kestin Pondi made the formal handover.
“Today marks another step forward in safeguarding Nigeria’s oil and gas infrastructure,” Edafioghor said at the ceremony. “These boats are built to world-class standards with a crew capacity of 7, making them highly effective for patrol and security operations.”
These gunboats are glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) hulls of the same semi-ballistic type that the Naval Shipyard Limited (NSL) has been producing since 2021, when the shipyard delivered the first batch under a domestic gunboat programme. Previous NSL-built variants have measured 9.22 meters by 3.2 meters and are rated for sea state two conditions, adequate for the sheltered creeks and inshore waters of the Niger Delta, where most patrol action takes place. Crew capacity on those earlier hulls was also 7, matching the specification cited for the Tantita donation.
The Nigerian Navy received 8 boats, and the Nigerian Army received 7. The joint allocation of the 15 boats split across the Army and Navy, rather than going to a single service, reflects deliberate thinking about inter-service coordination. The Niger Delta operating environment demands riverine patrols that regularly involve Army troops moving through the same waterways as Navy patrol craft, and dedicated platforms for both services reduce friction in joint operations.
A PUBLIC-PRIVATE MODEL FOR NIGER DELTA SECURITY
Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited is a private security company, founded in 2005, and headquartered in Effurun, Delta State. The company specializes in pipeline surveillance, paramilitary escort, advanced surveillance operations, and corporate social responsibility and community engagement. It works under a contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and runs joint patrols alongside the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Army, and the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Delta Safe. The arrangement also demonstrates the local content angle the company has emphasized publicly, contracting NSL rather than importing hulls keeps both the build work and the industrial knowledge inside Nigeria.
The donation fits a broader pattern of corporate bodies topping up Nigeria’s inshore patrol fleet. In August 2021, oil and gas group Aiteo Global donated 21 gunboats, 14 operational patrol boats, 7 houseboats, and 4 airboats to the Navy, including 10 15-metre hulls procured from Hong Ha Shipbuilding Company in Vietnam. That transfer was specifically aimed at countering maritime crime in the Niger Delta’s territorial waters. The NSL-built GRP gunboats are aimed squarely at the creeks and shallow-water corridors where oil theft and illegal bunkering activity are concentrated.
The Army’s 7 boats add to a riverine transport and patrol capacity that has historically lagged behind the Navy’s. For the Navy, 8 additional locally built hulls help maintain patrol density in the Delta’s creek network while larger, costlier vessels are deployed further offshore. Tantita, for its part, signals that its commitment to the joint security architecture extends beyond its own operational interest.