Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja
The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Lucky Irabor, yesterday said joint training exercises for the Armed Forces was vital to curbing security challenges in the country.
He spoke at a Joint Simulation Exercise 2022 for Operation Whirl Punch in Abuja.
“The joint training will also help in addressing future threats that the Armed Forces of Nigeria might be taxed to address,” he said.
He noted that given the time available for the defence forces, the starting point would be to have a simulation exercise.
“Professionalism is a process. Every organisation in the force has to reshape, review its structure, review its certain, all in a bid to get better for them in the armed forces, of course, a lot of mileage has been covered. We still have so much more to cover”, he said.
Irabor said the armed forces operate within an environment and within a geographical space but the contending issues were far beyond those within such space which was global in nature.
“Some are made, others, of course, are natural but as members of the armed forces, it is necessary for them to be seized on these issues and have them properly contextualised and get ready to like plan contingencies to be able to redress them so that at any point in time when the forces are called upon, there wouldn’t be any reason for any excuse for failures”, he said.
The military chief noted that presently the armed forces were engaged in various theatres of operations across the country, dealing with issues that were more internal in nature, that at some point required resources and the capacity of the armed forces.
“That’s why they are there but going forward given the impact of the engagement, we are looking forward to assisting other agencies, indeed increasing their capacity to be able to respond to those issues so that going forward the armed forces of Nigeria will be able to focus more on issues that are traditionally the responsibilities of the armed forces. But I know that , that is the longer term goal that in the interim we shall continue and we escalate”, he said.
The defence chief thanked the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Faruk Yahaya, for making the center available for the exercise.
Earlier, in his remarks, the Chief of Defence, Training and Operations, Major Gen Adeyemi Yekimi, explained that the exercise was organised as a follow-up to one of the key decisions reached during the last defence retreat held earlier in Asaba.
He said the main objective was to find ways to further enhance jointness in operations as the armed forces of Nigeria, working with other security agencies in order to seek to overcome the contemporary security challenges facing the country.
