Inside Nigeria’s shadow defence ecosystem
The US sells Nigeria military equipment under strict conditions at premium prices, then the US and other external capital prevent Nigerian startups from building alternatives.
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In June 2025, Nigerian drone startup Terra Industries (formerly Terrahaptix) achieved a remarkable feat: it outbid an Israeli consortium to win a $1.2 million contract for hydropower plant security. Terra’s drones, designed and manufactured in Abuja, proved cheaper, faster to deploy, and better suited to Nigeria’s terrain than foreign alternatives. According to Nathan Nwachuku, Terra’s CEO, the competitive advantage came down to “data sovereignty and a full-stack ecosystem.”<br />
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The contract involves deploying about 12 autonomous drones and over 35 surveillance towers to monitor critical infrastructure. Nathan went on to say the plants being secured ‘have been used as hideouts by bandits and even some terrorists,’ making this look like a frontline military defence project, even though it is packaged as commercial ‘infrastructure security.’ The reason for this framing is actually interesting.<br />
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The double bind: foreign capital, foreign control<br />
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One of Terra’s founders, Maxwell Maduka, was in fact a former Nigerian Navy drone engineer. Considering Nigeria’s security crisis, the necessity of a company like Terra in improving Nigeria’s defence cannot be overstated. However, in May 2024, Terra reportedly shut down its defence division, announcing that it would no longer develop or research military systems.<br />
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The closure announcement cited “ethical considerations,” but the timing might tell a different story. Terra had just raised $ 800,000 in pre-seed funding from mostly US-based VCs. Terra was building military drones. Then they stopped. “…We do not want ethical disasters in our hands,” CEO Nathan Nwachuku said in the press release. “We want to produce low-cost, mobile robots and automate core industries globally, not fight wars.” Six months later, Terra won a $1.2M contract to protect hydropower plants that, according to the CEO, had been “used as hideouts by bandits and even some terrorists.” Their drones now monitor threats, relay real-time intelligence, and provide per...
