Counter- Terrorism: AFCSC reviews training curriculum for officers
The Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji has reviewed its training curriculum to reflect contemporary security challenges in the country.
The Commandant of the College, Air Vice Marshal Suleiman Dambo, disclosed this at the graduation ceremony of college’s Junior Course 81 in Jaji near Kaduna on Friday.
He said counter revolutionary strategy, anti-insurgency efforts among other courses had been added to the curriculum of the junior staff course as well as the senior cadre officers training programme.
Dambo added that selected students of the college would be sent to Algeria and Srilanka to understudy the countries’ counter-insurgency efforts.
He said the review would equip young officers with the necessary skills to contend with the challenges of contemporary warfare.
The commandant urged the graduating students to uphold the tenets of discipline, leadership and commitment which he noted were key in the application of knowledge acquired at the college.
In an interview with newsmen, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, said the curriculum review was apt and in line with the vision of current leadership of the Armed Forces.
Buratai said the maneuverist approach to contemporary warfare was being improved upon in the training of middle level and senior military officers in the country.
“We look at the issue of counter revolutionary warfare as well as the counter-insurgency training and that is what we are focusing on.
“Virtually, most of our training institutions have adapted to these changes and have since begun the process of integrating them.
“Since 2001, we have shifted towards the manouverist approach to warfare and this is further being developed to incorporate more seriously, the counter-insurgency aspect of the strategy.
“This is done based on our experiences here in Nigeria with the Boko Haram terrorists and indeed by extension, the militancy in the Niger Delta.”
Buratai added that the army had gone a step further by inaugurating a motorcycle unit that was already operational in the North East.
He said the army was reorganising the unit through a robust training programme to improve its efficiency.
SECURITY MONITOR reports that the high-point of the graduation ceremony was the presentation of certificates to the 176 graduates in the departments of land warfare, maritime warfare and air warfare.
That the graduated students comprise 90 officers from the Nigerian Army, 40 from Nigerian Navy, 26 from the Nigerian Air Force, 10 non-military and 10 foreign participants
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