Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday in Kaduna, said with its size, population, and current security challenges, it has become “imperative” to build Nigeria’s indigenous national defence capabilities.
This, he said, would require investing in the local capacity to manufacture armaments.
According to a statement signed late Tuesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo spoke at the 32nd Convocation Ceremony and the Graduation of 69 Regular Course Cadets and Postgraduate students of the Nigerian Defence Academy.
The statement is titled ‘Osinbajo to NDA graduates: Innovation is critical in tackling security challenges.’
He said, “In a country, the size and population of Nigeria, with threats to our citizenry and sovereignty, in different locations, it is absolutely imperative that we build our indigenous national defence capabilities.
“This means revitalizing our local military-industrial complex and investing in the local capacity to manufacture armaments.”
The VP added that with a far more complicated current security environment, the new crop of military officers is the generation of warrior-scholars that will confront enemies of the state with an arsenal of unconventional skills, unorthodox strategies and critical thinking.
In his speech bordering on the contemporary security environment and emerging challenges for security and defence services, Osinbajo who was Special Guest of Honour at the Convocation Ceremony said, “It has fallen on you to be thought-leaders that will advance development both on and off the battlefield.”
He noted that “the threat environment that you are tasked with engaging is not the same threat environment that existed just a decade ago.”
According to him, the new generation of officers must define their cause and fight their battles as they are operating in this new environment with peculiar challenges.
“In strategic national security terms, you will be operating in a new age. While your challenges are new, it is also true that every generation must define its cause and fight its own battles,” he said.
Elucidating the contexts of the new security environment, Prof. Osinbajo said “you must contend with the mix of asymmetric conflicts, hybrid warfare, insurgencies and armed criminal activities perpetrated by criminal non-state actors. These are conflicts that are novel in their viciousness but dated in their origins.
“How do you engage a vicious lawless enemy along the lines of the Geneva Convention? What are the new rules of engagement with well-equipped criminal non-state actors?”
On the digital age dimensions of conflict, the VP said the graduates must take note of the realities of living in the digital age adding that digitisation has created a whole new world, cyberspace, where all transactions and activities including commercial, social, financial, and even crucial military intelligence take place.
“There is no doubt that the digital domain is one of the frontiers that your generation of our armed forces will be increasingly tasked to defend. More broadly, It is clear that we cannot secure or defend a country of this size with human assets alone. We must leverage technology,” the VP added.
He argued that, when applied creatively, technology can be a force multiplier, amplifying Nigeria’s potential and her capacity to effectively secure her territory.
The Vice President was accompanied by the Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai who received him at the airport, alongside Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (retd.) and some top military officers.
