Promotion in Nigeria’s Paramilitary Now on Academic Prowess, Says Interior Minister Tunji-Ojo

Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo on  Thursday said promotion in the paramilitary service under the Ministry of Interior would henceforth require more than passing promotional examines, calling on officers to brace up and get academic qualifications for career progression.

The Minister made the declaration in Abuja while speaking at the books presentation of ten books authored by the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr Ahmed Audi. or co-authored with Prof Tyoor Terhemba.

The Minister who commended the academic prowess of the NSCDC Commandant General, declared that personnel must upgrade their knowledge to qualify for promotions henceforth.

The Minister while emphasizing on the need to invest in the education of personnel, said: “The best of people you find in the FBI, the best of the people you find in the MI6, all over the world in CIA, they are alumni of some of the best Institutions in the world.

“Knowledge is directly proportional to performance. You can not give what you don’t have. The battle ahead of us is more ideological than physical and you can only defeat an ideology with your ideology and your ideology is nothing but superior knowledge and knowledge comes from the place of learning.

“I will personally ensure all our agencies have a functional library for research. The era of promotion just by writing exams will soon be over. Your promotion has to be a product of a cocktail of evaluation parameters based on experience, practicability of excellence, base on theory and ability to profer solutions.

“If you want to be a DCG for example, you must let us know that you have the idea of the challenges of the moment and you are able to forecast problems that are not yet there and profer solutions. The ability to solve a problem before it comes is what leadership is all about.

“Security is like science and that is why we talk about trends, we talk about occurrences. The ability to forecast prospective incidences would determine the level of security.”

The Minister also at the occasion announced the establishment of a team tagged: Paramilitary Brain Trust (PBT), which he said would be made up of public officers and professionals with the task of providing technical advice to the government through research and other academic endeavours.

On the CG, he said Audi had shown capacity in leading the Corps to tackle criminal elements in the country.

The CG who spoke earlier, revealed that  five of the books were completely written by him while the other seven were co-authored by associates.

He disclosed that he started writing the books five years ago, noting that they
discussed insecurity in Nigeria, terrorism, peace and conflict resolution among other subjects around security.

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

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