Yochuku Ofoka Yobolisa –Editor In Chief
As in wartime, officers and men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps have been charged to live up to their civil defence mandate of protecting the people. Commandant-General of the corps, Dr Ahmed Abubakar Audi, said that with terrorist violence, banditry and all manner of organized crimes spreading at epidemic speed across the nation, the corps has no reason not to live up to the mandate for which it was established it.
In a statement signed by the corps’s director of public relations, Olusola Odumosu, the NSCDC boss said that the government appointed him at this trying time in our history to reposition the corps for efficient service delivery, adding that anything short of that expectation is not acceptable.
The Commandant-General frowned at lapses in weapons handling whereby arms and ammunition were, before now, not properly accounted for, and accidental discharges took place. To this end, he abolished the erstwhile decentralization of arms in the corps, directing that all weapons be mopped up from all units and formations and moved to a central armoury for effective control.
He said, “The days of accidental discharges among arms-bearing personnel are over. Henceforth, every personnel who must bear arms must first show a certificate of competence before he or she would be allowed to carry arms. The corps under my watch will not tolerate accidental discharges under any guise.”
For operational efficiency in the ongoing struggles against armed criminals, Audi said that NSCDC officials would henceforth be clinically tested to ascertain their health and mental statuses.
He dwelt heavily on maintaining proper and acceptable rules of engagement in all civil defence operations and said that training and retraining of officers and men will be accorded priority attention in his time.
