MARSS Signs MoU With Nigerian MoD for Landmark National C4I Programme, Valued at Over $190M

The MoU, signed in London on 19 March 2026, establishes a partnership between MARSS, the Nigerian Ministry of Defence, and local partners to deliver Nigeria’s first fully integrated national defence architecture.

Under the agreement, MARSS will deliver its NiDAR AI-powered C4I solution along with a training, spares and support programme. A new national command centre will also be commissioned, featuring a state-of-the-art Centre of Excellence to deliver ongoing training for Nigerian operators to maintain 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 the national security agencies in counter-terrorism operations.

“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.”

The programme marks a significant commitment to one of the first national-scale adoptions of AI-enabled C4I in Africa. The programme scope includes:

• A fleet of expeditionary platforms, equipped with mixture of sensors and effectors meshed by MARSS’ ground-breaking 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 it is unsafe to deploy ground resources.
• 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, Edge to Mission Command (E2MC) capabilities – delivering an integrated multi-domain air and land surveillance picture.

Rob Balloch, Chief Growth Officer at MARSS said: “By integrating expeditionary vehicles, regional centres, and a new national headquarters into a single C4I tactical picture, NiDAR will provide a multi-dimensional layered defence capability that is both scalable and future-proofed in the fight against terrorism.”

This new programme will take advantage of two of NiDAR’s latest capability upgrades:

• NiDAR Nation Shield, with its E2MC capabilities, enables those in expeditionary vehicles, piloting UAVs, or in regional and national hubs to work from the same single operational picture, allowing for faster and more accurate decision-making at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
• NiDAR 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 support of the UK Government and our local and international partners has been a major factor in bringing this project together,” Balloch added. “It is a huge endorsement of the UK’s position as an AI defence technology leader, with the ability to deliver this critical capability at scale with confidence.”

NiDAR is already in operation across more than 60 sites globally - protecting military and critical infrastructure installations. This latest contract is a further demonstration of how NiDAR’s AI-enabled C4I capability can be scaled to create a single, coherent operating picture from tactical deployments right through to strategic, national-level command.