Insurgency: Air Chief asks NDA cadets to be patriotic, courageous
The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar, has asked graduating cadets of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) to be patriotic and courageous, as they join the armed forces in the fight against insurgency next month.
The 64 Regular Course Army and 65 Regular Course Navy and Air Force cadets were at the weekend tested in the act of warfare after they were subjected to three weeks of practical warfare training where live ammunitions of various weapons were fired. The final battle inoculation exercise, which involved firing of live ammunitions of various weapons at Combat Team Level on selected targets was designed to expose the officer cadets to real battle situations.
Speaking at the closing of the 3-week training at Kachia in Kaduna State at the weekend, Abubakar said the training had adequately prepared the cadets to contribute effectively to the fight against insurgency and other threats confronting Nigeria.
The Chief of Air Staff who was represented by the Air Officer Commanding (AOC), Training Command, Kaduna, Air Vice Marshal C. E Okoye, said, “The training you have received has prepared you to adequately contribute effectively to this fight. Therefore, I urge you to be patriotic and courageous as you discharge your duty to the country in whatever way you may be called to do so. As you look forward to passing out from the Academy come September 16, 2017, permit me to remind you of zero tolerance to every act of indiscipline. As such, you must exercise extra caution and remain disciplined for the days ahead, so that your hope of earning a presidential commission is not dashed.”
Earlier, the Academy’s Director of Military Training (DMT), Brigadier General M. G Kangye described the training code-named ‘Exercise Camp Highland’ as the final field training exercise for passing out army cadets, adding that it was designed to examine their understanding of operational, administrative and logistic concepts. “The exercise is used for the assessment of the cadets’ suitability for commission into the armed forces as combatant officers,” he stressed.