Director-General, Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Abuja, Major-General Garba Wahab (rtd), has underscored the need for indigenous systems to address insecurity and promote national development.
Wahab stated this yesterday in Ibadan at the Faculty Distinguished Personality Lecture, organised by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, UI.
The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the lecture was entitled “The Military and the Gown: Forging Partnership for National Development”.
Wahab noted that the military and the gown have had a long collaboration leading to ground-breaking inventions in industry, science and technology, and medicine.
“Most military weapons and equipment are products of intense collaboration between the academic and the gown, which has also aided the development of nations.
“Through knowledge and information sharing, research, exchange programmes, learning and building consensus at all levels, both sectors have advanced the nation and solved common challenges that hinder the development of nations,” he said.
According to him, the military-gown partnership has aided security in Nigeria and led to enhanced capacity of the military, increased intelligence sharing and reduced crime rate in the country.
“However, there is the need to forge and deepen partnerships to produce a modern military with heavy reliance on indigenous systems and address the common problems of insecurity that have become a challenge to national development,” Wahab said.
He identified the challenges in forging partnerships with the academia as finance, lack of quality laboratories that could support high-level research in Nigerian universities and incessant industrial action.
Wahab stated that most research from the military are conducted outside the country, mainly at Indian universities, thus emphasising the need to look inward.
“Academia should continue to develop competent and motivated high-level researchers.”
Wahab said the academia should strive to produce more confident students since they were trained specifically to be integrated into active life.
In his remarks, the General Officer Commanding, GOC, 2 Division, Nigerian Army, Ibadan, Major-General Obinna Onubogu reiterated the need for collaboration between the academia and the military.
According to him, the military is doing quite a lot of collaboration and will continue to do so.
Onubogu called for value reorientation, especially among youths, adding that most of the security issues in the South-West are due to misguided youths who had lost respect and values.
The GOC said the nation needs value restoration to overcome some of its security issues.
In his address, the Dean, Faculty of Arts, UI, Professor Solomon Oyetade, stated the need for the military to understand the languages of immediate communities sharing borders with Nigeria.
Oyetade said there are numerous ways that the faculty could partner the military to provide research that could help military operations and engagement.
NAN reports that Wahab was presented a merit award by the Faculty of Arts, UI. (NAN)
