Brief History

The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1964. Consequently a West German manufacturing firm Fritz Werner was assigned the task of providing technical expertise and set up the Ordnance Factory in Kaduna.

The first Technical Partner of the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) was Fritz Werner of Western Germany. FW designed and built the Kaduna Ordnance Factories in 1964 with the following production capacities;

  • 5000 units of BM 59 Rifles per annum,
  • 18,000 units of SMG 12 per annum,
  • 12,000,000 rounds of 7.62mm x 51 per annum and
  • 4,000,000 rounds of 9mm x 19 per annum.

The Nigerian Civil War which occurred between 1967 -1970 necessitated the tripling of the above production rates and the factory was thus able to make a significant contribution to the war effort. After the war in 1970, the lucrative arms market for DICON ended. Therefore, in order to remain in business DICON decided to use its equipment to produce civilian items like rural water supply equipment, industrial spare parts and furniture for sale to the public.