MARSS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Ministry of Defence (MoD) and local partners, valued at over $190 million, to deliver Nigeria’s first fully integrated national defence architecture. The agreement was signed in London on 19 March 2026.
Under the agreement, MARSS will deliver its NiDAR AI-powered C4I solution, along with a comprehensive training, spares, and support programme. A new national command centre will also be commissioned, featuring a state-of-the-art Centre of Excellence to provide ongoing training for Nigerian operators, ensuring a high state of operational readiness.
Nigeria and the wider West African region face growing asymmetric threats from terrorism and organised insurgency. This programme will see MARSS working with its local partners to build sovereign capability, create a critical multi-domain defence architecture, and support national security agencies in counter-terrorism operations.
Minister for Defence at the House of Lords, Lord Coaker, stated:
“The UK and Nigeria share a deep, longstanding security and defence relationship. Signing this memorandum of understanding is a great example of our continued and strengthening partnership, with a British company able to deliver world-leading, combat-proven UK technology and defensive capabilities to support Nigeria’s fight against terrorism.”
NiDAR Autonomous Mission Management (AMM) enables operators to autonomously task and deploy uncrewed assets across air, land, and sea domains, transforming UAVs, UGVs, and USVs into intelligent autonomous sensors and effectors within the wider defence ecosystem.
The programme marks a significant commitment as one of the first national-scale adoptions of AI-enabled C4I in Africa. The programme scope includes:
- A fleet of expeditionary platforms equipped with a mixture of sensors and effectors meshed by MARSS’ NiDAR C4I system.
- Unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles (UAVs) integrated into NiDAR via MARSS’ Autonomous Mission Management (AMM), enabling intelligent aerial reconnaissance in hostile and contested areas where ground resource deployment is unsafe.
- New regional command centres and a national headquarters, networked to receive live sensor data from fixed legacy systems and the fleet of expeditionary platforms and UAVs, fused together by MARSS’ NiDAR Nation Shield and Edge to Mission Command (E2MC) capabilities — delivering an integrated multi-domain air and land surveillance picture.
