{"id":33172,"date":"2026-04-28T09:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33172"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:53:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T07:53:30","slug":"nigerias-military-backs-local-startup-unveiling-drones-mine-clearing-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigerias-military-backs-local-startup-unveiling-drones-mine-clearing-vehicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria\u2019s military backs local startup unveiling drones, mine-clearing vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nigerian technology startup Terra Industries unveiled interceptor drones \u200band mine-clearing unmanned vehicles on \u200cMonday as part of new defence systems the military said could help \u200bin its anti-insurgency operations.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria has \u200bgrappled with an Islamist insurgency \u2060for over 17 years and \u200bthis year, militants have stepped up \u200battacks against army positions using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and drones.<\/p>\n<p>Terra had until now \u200bfocused on civilian drones and \u200bother security equipment.<\/p>\n<p>Terra CEO Nathan Nwachukwu said, &#8220;We \u200care \u2060unveiling new defence systems such as our interceptor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, our minesweepers, ground vehicles that can detect \u200bIEDs on \u200bthe \u2060ground, and our battlefield intelligence software.&#8221;<br \/>\nMajor General Babatunde \u200bAlaya, who heads Nigeria&#8217;s state-run \u200bmilitary-industrial \u2060corporation DICON, said collaboration with Terra Industries was necessary given \u2060high \u200btroop casualties from improvised \u200bexplosive devices.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22924,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-33172","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Terra had until now \u200bfocused on civilian drones and \u200bother security equipment.\r\n","published_date":"","news_description":"Terra had until now \u200bfocused on civilian drones and \u200bother security equipment.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33173,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33172\/revisions\/33173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}