STM Leads Turkish Pavilion at AFRIDEX 2026 in Lagos
Türkiye’s defence industry opened its biggest push yet into West Africa this week, with a delegation led by the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) taking stands at AFRIDEX 2026, the first Africa International Defence Exhibition, which opened in Lagos on October 26 and runs through October 29. STM, the naval and unmanned-systems engineering house owned by SSB, is fielding the largest Turkish display at the show, putting a frigate design, a fast attack craft and four unmanned platforms in front of Nigerian and regional buyers.
AFRIDEX is a new event, organised by Nigeria’s Defence Industries Corporation (DICON) with support from the federal government and run with international events company dmg events, with Defensehere serving as the show’s official media partner. Organisers are targeting more than 500 exhibiting companies and over 20,000 visitors across the four days at Lagos’s Eko Atlantic district, with national pavilions confirmed for Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the UAE and the United States alongside Türkiye’s. No contracts or memoranda of understanding tied to the Turkish stands have been announced as of this writing; the companies are using the show for product display and the bilateral meetings that typically precede any deal.
What STM Is Showing
STM’s stand (number 2112, next to ASELSAN’s at 2110) carries three naval designs and four unmanned systems. On the naval side, the company is displaying its İ-Class frigate — the export name for the İstif-class design already under construction for the Turkish Navy — alongside its MPAC fast attack craft and the AOR+ auxiliary oiler replenishment ship STM is currently building for the Portuguese Navy. The AOR+ contract, Portugal’s first major Turkish warship order, gives STM a concrete delivery record to point to in a market where Turkish yards are still a newer name than established European and Chinese builders.
The unmanned lineup covers four systems. KARGU, STM’s rotary-wing loitering munition, has already been exported to more than a dozen countries and is the company’s best-known product internationally. TURUL is a vertical-take-off-and-landing reconnaissance and surveillance drone. TOGAN, paired with STM’s KERKES navigation package, is built to keep operating when GNSS signals are jammed or denied — a feature STM markets specifically at buyers worried about electronic-warfare-heavy environments.
STM General Manager Özgür Güleryüz has framed the company’s push abroad in blunt terms: more than 65 percent of STM’s revenue now comes from international customers, he said, and its autonomous systems are operational in more than 15 countries across four continents. AFRIDEX is the first stop on a six-show calendar the company has mapped out for the rest of 2026, continuing with EURONAVAL in Paris in early November, DronTech Asia in Bangkok, NATO EDGE in İzmir, EXPONAVAL in Santiago and the Vietnam Defence Expo in Hanoi in December — a schedule that spans four continents and underlines how far STM’s marketing has moved beyond its original mandate as a state-owned engineering contractor.
Why Nigeria, and Why Now
Nigeria is not a new relationship for Turkish exporters. Abuja and Ankara have already agreed to move beyond a straightforward buyer-seller arrangement, with a Turkish drone maker committed to building a local assembly line rather than simply shipping finished aircraft. That pattern — training programmes, financing arrangements and a path to local assembly — is roughly how Turkish firms have built their African customer base more broadly, and it is a different sales model than the one Turkish companies use in Gulf or European markets, where buyers are more often paying cash for finished platforms.
For Nigeria specifically, hosting a dedicated defence exhibition — rather than relying on buyers travelling to IDEF in Istanbul or SAHA Expo — signals an ambition to become a regional hub for African defence procurement, with DICON positioning itself as a convener rather than only a buyer. For SSB and the companies under its umbrella, a four-day show on West African soil is a cheaper way to meet officials from across the region than running separate bilateral visits to a dozen capitals.
The Rest of the Turkish Pavilion
Beyond STM, the Turkish pavilion includes ASELSAN, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ), HAVELSAN and the state ordnance manufacturer MKE, all under SSB’s coordination. Organiser materials describe the broader pavilion’s technology areas as spanning armoured vehicles, artillery and ammunition on the land side, unmanned aircraft and radar on the air side, and naval platforms, underwater systems and sonar on the maritime side, plus space and cyber capabilities — but specific product lists for ASELSAN, TUSAŞ, HAVELSAN and MKE’s individual stands have not been published, and this article does not speculate on what each is showing beyond STM’s confirmed lineup.
Whether the week in Lagos produces an actual order is a separate question from whether Türkiye builds a presence worth defending at the next edition. The İstif-class design STM is marketing as the İ-Class has only recently entered Turkish Navy service itself, and this is not STM’s first month running the same frigate and drone combination through multiple trade shows — Poland, South Africa and Azerbaijan all saw similar displays within the past two months. AFRIDEX is one more stop in a deliberately wide net, and its real test will be whether any of the meetings held on the show floor in Lagos convert into the kind of local-assembly or financing arrangement that has anchored Türkiye’s other African relationships.
