A total of 172 African soldiers, have completed a 21-week intensive military training which began on January 4, 2017 in Kaduna, the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Captain Stephen T. Tarplah of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) was one of nine commanders of the rank of Captain and their equivalent from other countries outside Nigeria who graduated from the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC) of Nigeria in Jaji. The other eight military international students came from Botswana, Cameron, Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Niger and Sierra Leone. They joined their Nigerian counterparts from both the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Air Force.
The Nigerians, who numbered 163, comprised 91 Nigerian Army, 39 Nigerian Navy, 28 Nigerian Air Force, five non-military personnel from the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA), Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Speaking at the graduation of Junior Course 83/2017, the guest of honour; Chief of Air Staff (CAS) who was represented by the Chief of Policy and Plans, Headquarters, NAF, Air Vice Marshal James Gbum said the objective of the course is to develop the professional knowledge and understanding of selected officers of the armed forces in order to prepare them for increasing responsibilities, urging them to brace up to the likely challenges and measure up to them with courage, conviction and in the mist professional manner.
In his words:
“For the past 21 weeks, you have been thoroughly subjected to various demanding tasks that exposed you to several presentations, lectures, discussions, exercises and even tours outside the college which have been carefully put together for you to imbibe what General Douglas MacAuthur, a former Chief of Staff of the United States Army called ‘The Cardinal Virtues of a Soldier. for members of the Nigerian armed forces, your sense of judgement in applying these skills would even be more apparent now that we are confronting a lot of internal security challenges in the country, mist especially the menace of Book Haram and the renewed militancy in the Nigerian Delta.”
The Commandant of the college, Air Vice Marshal Suleiman Dambo, said the course is aimed at developing the command, analytical and communication skills of the students in order to equip them to effectively operate during single a service, combined or joint and multi-agency operations, adding that there had not been a comprehensive review of the college curriculum since 2002, hence the college embarked on a comprehensive review from 2016 to January, 2017 which has since been completed and provisional approval has been granted by the Defense Headquarters.