Proforce Limited has added a new mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle to its lineup, unveiling the PF Terminator at the Nigerian Army Day Celebration (NADCEL) in Port Harcourt. The vehicle, engineered and manufactured domestically by the Nigerian armoured vehicle maker, is built to move infantry safely across difficult terrain while absorbing the kind of ballistic and blast threats Nigerian forces face in ongoing counter-insurgency operations.
PF Terminator
The PF Terminator is rated to STANAG 4569 Level 2, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s standard scale for assessing armoured vehicle survivability, providing 360-degree protection against ballistic projectiles, improvised explosive devices and artillery fragmentation. Proforce’s own figures describe this as omnidirectional coverage built into the hull design rather than bolt-on armour panels, though Level 2 sits toward the lower end of the STANAG 4569 scale, below the Level 3A/3B ballistic and Level 4A/4B blast protection Proforce has previously claimed for its own flagship Ara 2 MRAP. That places the Terminator in a different protection tier from the company’s existing top-end product rather than above it, a distinction worth noting for anyone comparing Proforce’s current range on specification alone.
The vehicle accommodates up to 12 personnel in a modular 2+10 seating configuration, giving it a larger carrying capacity than either the nine-passenger PF Viper or Proforce’s earlier Ara variants. Power comes from a Kamaz 667.310-310 inline-six diesel engine producing 301 horsepower, driving all wheels through a system equipped with a central tyre inflation system (CTIS), which allows the crew to adjust tyre pressure from inside the vehicle to improve traction across sand, mud or rocky terrain without stopping. Gross vehicle weight is rated at 15,000 kilograms, with a maximum payload capacity of 7,000 kilograms, and ground clearance of 385 millimetres.
A new addition to Proforce’s lineup
The Terminator joins an MRAP range that now includes the PF Hulk, PF Viper and PF Ara 2 alongside two armoured personnel carrier lines, the PF2 and a carrier variant of the Viper. Each existing model occupies a distinct niche. The PF Ara, first unveiled at the Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition in 2016, remains the company’s combat-proven flagship, supplied to both the Nigerian Army and Chad after South Africa’s Denel failed to deliver a separate 40-vehicle order to N’Djamena. The PF Viper, redesigned in December 2021 with a 360-degree turret ring and a prominent V-shaped hull, serves as a lighter, more manoeuvrable option for small combat teams, carrying nine personnel on a 7,000-kilogram curb weight with STANAG 4569 Level I protection. The PF Hulk, unveiled in June 2024 and acquired by the Nigerian Army in batches since, sits closer to the Terminator’s weight class at 14,500 kilograms gross, powered by a Russian YaMZ-536 diesel engine.
The Hulk’s origin is worth noting because it establishes a pattern the Terminator appears to continue. Military Africa reported in July 2024 that the Hulk bears a striking resemblance to Russia’s AMN-590951 Spartak armoured vehicle, down to its V-shaped hull rated to withstand 6 to 8 kilograms of TNT-equivalent blast and reinforced armour designed to resist 12.7 and 14.5-millimetre rounds, a design relationship that emerged as Nigeria’s then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Faruk Yahaya, was actively soliciting Russian support for more sophisticated military hardware. The Terminator’s own Kamaz diesel engine, from a different major Russian truck and engine manufacturer, extends that same reliance on Russian automotive platforms into Proforce’s newest heavy MRAP, even as the vehicle itself is assembled and marketed as a Nigerian-engineered product.
A Company Built on Local Content and Foreign Technology Transfer
Proforce’s position in Nigeria’s defence-industrial base is reinforced by an ownership structure most foreign observers would not expect from a self-described indigenous manufacturer: the Nigerian Army Welfare Limited by Guarantee, the Army’s own investment vehicle, holds a 15 percent shareholding in the company, acquired in 2021. That stake sits alongside a web of foreign technical partnerships Proforce has built over the past half-decade, including a composite armour development agreement with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, a joint vehicle production arrangement with Ukraine’s PJSC Autokraz, an ammunition production partnership with Turkey’s Atensci, and a research and development agreement with Nigeria’s National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI). Speaking at the NASENI signing, Proforce’s Ade Ogundeyin framed the company’s mission in terms of import substitution rather than export ambition alone: “Proforce is a company that was born out of the challenges in Nigeria,” he said. “Nigeria has what it takes to be a great nation but our problem is that we are not harnessing our own resources.”
The PF Terminator’s NADCEL debut extends that strategy with a heavier, higher-capacity platform aimed squarely at the kind of sustained troop transport and force protection missions Nigeria’s counter-insurgency campaigns in the northeast and northwest continue to demand, adding another option to a domestic MRAP catalogue that, whatever its individual vehicles’ precise protection ratings, has grown considerably more diverse than it was even two years ago.