The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt.-General Waidi Shaibu, has called for a curriculum overhaul of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) that reflects contemporary security challenges.
He said the curriculum should focus on night training, physical fitness, artificial intelligence, and other emerging warfare domains.
The COAS made the call when he received the NDA Commandant, Maj-Gen Oluyemi Olatoye, at the Army Headquarters in Abuja.
According to him, these measures would ensure that young officers are ‘fully attuned to the realities of modern battlefields and equipped with the warrior ethos and battle-oriented leadership skills required to confront contemporary security challenges.’
General Shaibu also stressed the need to strengthen research centres, particularly the NDA Department of Military Science, as a strategic step towards boosting the National Defence Industry and enhancing indigenous capacity for military innovation and self-reliance.
He emphasized that a robust research framework would provide the intellectual backbone required for a modern, responsive and technologically advanced fighting force.
The COAS pledged his full support to the Commandant in achieving these objectives, reaffirming his commitment to ensure that the NDA produces officers who are ‘strategically sound, operationally competent and fully prepared’ to meet the evolving security demands of the nation.
The NDA Commandant assured that he would build on the legacies and structures established by his predecessors.
He solicited sustained support from the COAS to effectively realise the vision and mission of producing competent, disciplined and professional officers capable of safeguarding Nigeria’s security interests.
He thanked the Nigerian military leadership for the confidence reposed in him to lead the nation’s premier military training institution, describing the NDA as the ‘training factory’ for future officers of the Armed Forces.