# Africa Buys Weapons. Africa Makes Weapons. But Who Controls Them?

- Link: https://www.military.africa/2026/09/africa-buys-weapons-africa-makes-weapons-but-who-controls-them/
- Published: 2026-09-20T07:22:07+01:00
- Author: Babatunde Fatai

At the height of some of the most consequential military campaigns the Nigerian 
Air Force had against Boko Haram in 2016, some of Nigeria’s Franco-German Alpha 
Jet aircraft, acquired decades earlier, were close to being [grounded](https://adf-magazine.com/2018/03/nigerias-air-force-defends-the-region/)
in the middle of the war. The reason for this was not a missing missile or a failed
engine; it was something as mundane as a brake assembly. Combat aircraft central
to the counter-insurgency campaign were about to become unusable because we didn’t
have the capacity internally to manufacture the required brake assemblies. This 
may seem shocking to many, but it is a normal occurrence for many countries that
rely on external military equipment and support and are not conscious about building
internal capacity, which in turn builds sovereignty.

The solution to this dilemma for the Nigerian Air Force did not arrive in the form
of another multibillion-dollar aircraft purchase, a foreign military package, or
a televised arms delivery. It came quietly through _Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing_;
the Nigerian company was brought in to adapt and overhaul brake assemblies, including
work associated with the MB-339 brake system, helping return Alpha Jets to service.
It was a small industrial intervention with a large strategic meaning: a locally
available solution helped restore combat availability where foreign dependency had
created a vulnerability.

A fighter aircraft, even when purchased fully and handed over, is not sovereign 
simply because a government owns it. Without the ability to repair, sustain and 
adapt it, the platform remains only as useful as the supply chain behind it.

According to SIPRI, military expenditure across Africa is rising: $58.2 billion 
in 2025, up 8.5 percent in one year and 45 percent since 2016. Conflicts are also
becoming more technologically intensive, and governments are acquiring drones, attack
helicopters, surveillance systems and precision munitions from an expanding range
of suppliers. At the same time, African firms are beginning to manufacture airframes,
batteries, vehicles, components and autonomous systems.

Yet the most consequential parts of military power are often the least visible: 
the sensors, encryption keys, software, datalinks, munitions, technical documentation,
spare parts and maintenance approvals that determine whether a weapon can actually
operate.

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Nigeria’s Alpha Jet episode exposes a distinction that is becoming more urgent across
African defense: possessing a platform is not the same as controlling the capability
it represents. A state may own an aircraft, drone or helicopter, but still depend
on outsiders for the parts, software, encryption, sensors, maintenance approvals,
munitions and export permissions that make it operational.

Africa is buying more weapons and beginning to make some of them. The harder question
is where the decisive bottlenecks sit, and who has the power to close them.

**Africa as a combat market, not simply an arms market**

Africa’s wars are no longer only places where weapons are used. They are increasingly
places where the value, credibility and consequences of modern military systems 
are established in real time. Take Sudan: Al Jazeera’s analysis of ACLED data recorded
more than 1,000 drone attacks from April 2023 to January 2026, devastating & displacing
the civilian population, showing how quickly externally supplied drone capability
has become central to the conflict.

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In 2025, Amnesty International identified China’s GB50A guided bomb in Sudan, describing
it as the weapon’s first documented use in an active conflict. The Sudanese Armed
Forces have used Turkish and Iranian systems, while the Rapid Support Forces have
obtained increasingly sophisticated Chinese-origin weapons and drones through external
supply networks; Sudan is therefore not only a civil war. It is an arena in which
networked, externally supplied military technologies are being operationalized and
assessed.

The Sahel reveals a related shift. Burkina Faso acquired Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones
for counterinsurgency operations, while Human Rights Watch documented civilian deaths
from several strikes in 2023. At the same time, armed groups are using commercial
quadcopters, modified first-person-view drones and improvised munitions for reconnaissance,
propaganda and attack. The barrier to launching an aerial strike has fallen, but
the institutions required to use force responsibly, accurately and accountably have
not kept pace.

A drone that performs in Sudan or the Sahel does more than alter a battlefield. 
It produces operational evidence, commercial visibility and demand from governments
confronting similar threats. But battlefield visibility should not be mistaken for
sovereign capability. The strategic question is not merely whether an African state
can buy, fly or assemble a drone. It is whether it can sustain, modify, arm, secure
and operate it when a supplier, software vendor or export-control authority no longer
agrees.

**The platform is only the visible layer of military power**

A drone operator may sit in Abuja, Bamako or Khartoum while directing an aircraft
hundreds of kilometers away. That control depends on a datalink carrying commands
to the platform and imagery back to the operator. If that link is insecure, unavailable,
or hacked by a third party, the operator may be holding the controls at that moment
without truly owning the system; at any point, his operations may be compromised
or even undermined. A country should always ask itself: Who owns encryption keys?
Can the military change mission software? Can our engineers connect a different 
camera, local radio, or new weapon systems? Does the supplier control updates or
diagnostic access? Where is mission data stored, and are we the only ones with access?
Because it is increasingly becoming obvious that in the digital age, sovereignty
is the right to control & debug your own weapon.

When a country does a military parade, people mistake the visible layer – weapons
and machinery – as the most important layer of their defense platforms, but it truly
isn’t; it is only the visible layer of their military strength, easier to photograph
for propaganda and also the easiest layer to buy. But these platforms are only the
outer shell. Its real power sits in less visible places: the camera that finds a
target at night, the encrypted link that carries orders, the software that controls
its mission, the foreign factory that makes a replacement part, and the government
that can approve or deny its export. To put simply, a country may own the machine
while somebody else controls its eyes, voice, brain, ammunition, or heartbeat.

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Türkiye’s Bayraktar TB2 has become a symbol of an indigenous drone industry, but
it also demonstrated the vulnerability of the supply chain beneath its airframe.
In 2020, Canada suspended export permits connected to military goods and technology
for Türkiye after allegations that Canadian-made sensors had been fitted to Azerbaijani
drones in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. After its review, Canada canceled permits after
saying the use of the technology was inconsistent with Canadian foreign policy and
Türkiye’s end-use assurances. Canada’s report did not present the matter as a simple,
conclusively proven case of diversion; it said the available information could be
interpreted as inconsistent with those assurances.

The more important lesson is what happened next. Türkiye moved to integrate ASELSAN’s
domestically developed CATS electro-optical system into TB2 deliveries, reducing
its exposure at that particular bottleneck. Dependency, then, is not permanent. 
It can trigger substitution, investment, and learning. The question for African 
defense industries is whether local production is reducing dependence at similarly
critical points, or merely relocating final assembly.

Even when a platform is assembled in Africa, the chain of permission may still pass
through several capitals: the country that licenses the engine, the company that
supplies the sensor, the owner of the software, the satellite provider carrying 
the signal, and the state that regulates a critical material or component.

Military sovereignty is not a purchase receipt; it is the degree to which a state
controls, or has reliable alternatives for, the decisive parts of its capability
chain: the platform, sensors and software, communications and data links, munitions,
sustainment, technical data and political permission.

The point is not autarky, i.e complete self-sufficiency with zero need for external
trade. No modern military makes or controls everything it uses. The test is narrower
and more demanding: where are the bottlenecks that could ground a fleet, disable
a system, block an upgrade or halt a sale, and who has the power to close them?

Some of these dependencies are technical, embedded in software, sensors, intellectual
property and engineering access. Others are contractual and political, embedded 
in maintenance agreements, export licenses and continuing supplier approval.

**When ownership does not mean control**

Control can also fail even when the technology itself is fully functional. Maintenance
contracts, export permissions and supplier support can determine whether an owned
platform remains operational. South Africa offers a particularly clear example.

South Africa possessed a world-class fighter force on paper. In practice, a break
in the support chain made ownership of part of that force largely ceremonial. The
country did not lose its Gripen fighter jets in combat. No enemy destroyed them 
on the runway. The country still owned them.

Yet in 2021, its Gripen fleet was grounded because support arrangements with Saab
and GKN, the original airframe and engine manufacturers, had lapsed amid funding
and contractual problems. Support was subsequently restored under new contracts,
but the episode remains glaring: ownership does not guarantee operational availability.

A newer aircraft does not automatically guarantee a more sovereign capability. Nigeria’s
A-29 Super Tucanos arrived through a United States Foreign Military Sale; that deal
was never just about the twelve aircraft; it bundled munitions, training, spare 
parts, infrastructure, contractor logistics and maintenance support into one operating
system. Then, in October 2024, the Nigerian Air Force had to engage the United States
Office of Security Cooperation as the existing contract extension approached its
end, seeking a seamless transition for maintenance and sustainability. The purchase
was completed years earlier; the capability, however, remained an ongoing negotiation
that ended up leaving our Military capability as a subscription that needs to be
periodically renewed.

The dependency chain does not disappear when a country becomes an exporter. It can
simply move deeper into the weapon. Nigeria operates Türkiye’s T129 ATAK attack 
helicopter, a platform marketed as part of Türkiye’s growing defense-industrial 
rise. But its CTS800 engine was developed by LHTEC, a joint venture involving Honeywell
and Rolls-Royce. That meant export permissions tied to the engine, which incorporates
US-controlled technology, became a strategic issue for Türkiye and potential export
customers. In the exact same light, Pakistan’s proposed acquisition of 30 T129 helicopters
was delayed for years because the required United States export license for the 
engines was not granted.

Nigeria could buy a Turkish helicopter, but the ability to manufacture and export
that helicopter was still shaped partly by decisions beyond Türkiye. Supplier diversification
matters, but it is not always independence. Sometimes dependency has simply been
pushed deeper into the bill of materials.

Africa’s emerging defense manufacturers, including Paramount Group, DICON and Terra,
matter for more than the symbolism of local production. Their strategic value lies
in whether they reduce reliance on the bottlenecks that determine operational availability,
adaptation and political freedom of action. The degree of sovereignty lies not in
how much of a weapon is manufactured locally, but in which decisive dependencies
remain externally controlled.

**African-made is not yet sovereign: manufacturing, procurement and the struggle
for control**

Africa has an emerging defense-industrial base, which changes the equation for the
continent because it can move expertise, production, maintenance and adoption closer
to users, but a locally assembled platform is not automatically a sovereign capability;
what makes the difference is control of critical bottlenecks and whether governments
procure not only weapons but also the right skill, infrastructure, software, spare
parts and long-term funding that makes the weapons usable and readily available.
Dependency is often designed across international supply chains, but it is also 
reproduced by domestic procurement decisions, weak sustainment planning, and political
preference for visible acquisitions over invisible readiness.

“African-made” is a great starting point; Terra closed its $52 million seed round
in August 2026 after raising an additional $18 million in strategic funding. It 
has framed itself around autonomous systems and ArtemisOS, its AI-powered operating
system; its significance is not that Nigeria has found a local company to print 
a Nigerian label on imported equipment. Its significance lies in whether the partnership
can transfer control over the capabilities that determine availability, adaptation,
and operational independence.

Terra illustrates both the promise and the limits of the new model. Its proposition
combines autonomous systems with software through ArtemisOS, while its DICON partnership
formally includes local production, R&D, training and technology transfer. That 
potentially moves more than final assembly into Nigeria: it could build a domestic
base of engineers, maintainers, system integrators and users capable of adapting
equipment to Nigerian conditions. But the strategic test remains unresolved. Can
Nigerian personnel service the platform without external approval? Can they modify
mission software, integrate another sensor, extend or modify, access diagnostics,
retain critical mission data, and replace a restricted component? The answers reveal
where localization ends, and meaningful control begins.

“African-made” should therefore be treated not as a marketing claim, but as an auditable
supply-chain question, where important questions can be verified, such as: What 
share of the system is manufactured, designed, and tested locally? Who owns the 
IP and software? Which components require external export approval? Can Nigerian
engineers independently repair, modify, and upgrade it? Can the country sustain 
production during a diplomatic rupture or supply interruption? The answers reveal
where localization ends, and meaningful control begins.

South Africa offers the historical warning. It built one of the continent’s most
substantial defense-industrial bases, Denel, with capabilities accumulated over 
decades; it was intended to preserve a sovereign defense-industrial base spanning
artillery, ammunition, missile technologies, aerospace maintenance and design authority
over locally developed systems. South Africa did not merely import defense equipment:
through the industrial ecosystem Denel inherited and later managed, it developed
indigenous competence in weapons production, aerospace support, testing and systems
integration.

The problem, however, is that much of this capability has since been allowed to 
erode. Years of governance failures, particularly during the state-capture period,
undermined Denel’s credibility with customers, suppliers and financiers, while skilled
engineers, artisans and program managers departed and infrastructure aged. The consequence
is larger than the decline of a state-owned company: it risks the loss of strategic
skills, intellectual property and the local ability to maintain, upgrade and adapt
critical defense systems without deeper dependence on foreign suppliers. The lesson
is severe: sovereignty is not acquired once. It must be funded, staffed, ordered
from, and continuously exercised.

**Conclusion**

A Nation’s defense vulnerability rarely arrives with a warning. It appears when 
a platform needs a part that cannot be sourced, when a weapon needs a software update
its operator cannot access without external authorization or validation, when a 
weapons system cannot be modified without permission from a company or government
thousands of kilometers away. In those moments, the difference between possessing
military hardware and controlling military capability becomes impossible to ignore.

Africa’s defense future will not be decided only by the size of its procurement 
budgets or the number of platforms produced locally. It will be decided by whether
its states can repair, adapt, secure, arm, and sustain the systems they depend on,
on their own terms and when circumstances demand it.

No country can produce everything. But every country can identify the dependencies
it cannot afford to lose. Until that becomes the measure of defense policy, Africa
may continue to own the machines while others retain control over their limits.

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