The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-Gen. Faruk Yahaya, says the Nigerian Army has developed knowledge-based approaches other than kinetic to addressing the nation’s security challenges.
Yahaya stated this while inaugurating the Strategic Management and Policy Studies Course 4 (SMPSC4) of the Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that security, which in itself had expanded beyond the old state-centric dimension to now cover all human endeavours was a major factor for the course.
“The programme which both professional and academic oriented individual can undertake is, therefore, designed to examine security through other lenses rather than the pure kinetic engagement which most of the participants are used to.
“Consequently, factors such as food and physical security, poverty reduction and employment through the development of medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) amongst others are given adequate attention.
“This is not done in isolation, but usually commences with theoretical examination of policy formulation, interpretation and management which is referred to as grand strategy in some quarters particularly the military,” he said.
According to him, at different levels of activities, policy provides the basic statement of what government intends doing.
“Participants will be examining and analysing such pronouncements and related activities on which actions of the various ministries, agencies and departments are based.
“Understanding all these will stand you in great stead in various capacities within your organisations while in service and individually when you are on your own,” he said.
The COAS also said that the essence of having a composite group on the course was informed by the potential values addition each participant would bring to bear thereby enriching class discussions through cross fertilisation of ideas and knowledge.
He added that knowledge was crucial to the performance of the participants as strategic leaders in their respective services and agencies.
According to him, SMPSC is about imparting knowledge in different spheres of human activities and serves the two purposes of education as expounded for instance by the military in the harmonized terms and conditions of service.
“On one hand, it is part of professional military education as it is the service that nominated participants on this course and on the other personal development,” he added.
Yahaya commended the centre for the consistency in its human capacity development mandate, adding that the feedback from the previous courses was encouraging.
He urged participants to put in their best to justify the confidence reposed in them by their various organisations to participate in the one year course that would be run in collaboration with the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA).
The Director-General, NARC, retired Maj.-Gen. Garba Wahab, said the course was specifically tailored towards the non-kinetic issues of employment, reduction in poverty and interpretation of government policies.
Wahab also disclosed that the participants would be prepared to be better positioned to assist the government in addressing the various challenges ranging from insecurity to poverty.
According to him, it is not carrying weapons that will solve all the problems; it is beyond that because we have different challenges in different parts of Nigeria.
He said the Strategic Management and Policy Studies Course-4 was one of the mandates given to the centre as part of human resource development.
Wahab said that the participants were drawn from three services of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, other security agencies as well as Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) (NAN)
