Osinbajo to NDA Cadets: You’re New Set of Warrior-scholars to Tackle Nation’s Security Challenges

*Describes armed forces as a unifying institution 

Deji Elumoye in Abuja 

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has told new Cadets of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) that they are the new crop of warrior scholars to face headlong the security challenges facing the nation.

 He stressed 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.

Osinbajo who spoke Tuesday in Kaduna at the 32nd Convocation Ceremony and the Graduation of 69 Regular Course Cadets and Postgraduate students of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) told the graduating cadets that it has fallen on them to be thought-leaders that will advance development both on and off the battlefield.

He noted that the threat environment that the warrior-scholars are tasked with engaging is not the same threat environment that existed just a decade ago.

According to him, the new generation of officers will need to define their cause and fight their battles as they are operating in this new environment with peculiar challenges.

He also told the new crop of young military officers that “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.” 

Commenting on the context of the new security environment,  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?”

 The Vice President also spoke on the digital age dimensions saying “we must take note of the realities of living in the digital age. Digitization has created a whole new world, cyberspace, where all transactions and activity 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”.

Osinbajo then noted that “at a time when national resources are stretched thin, we have to come up with technology-driven solutions to addressing our security needs. 

 “We must become savvier in the deployment of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools to complement our human resources. When applied creatively, technology can be a force multiplier, amplifying our potential and our capacity to effectively secure our territory.”

 On the implications of Climate Change for national security and military planning, the Vice President noted that apart from the serious revenue loss from declining earnings from oil and gas, there are the disruptions that may be caused because of  military’s dependence on fossil fuels for transport, logistics, mobility and weapons deployment.

He explained that “we must rigorously consider the implications of these shifts on our national defence apparatus because as our country pursues energy transition, it is worth setting as a goal for our defence and security sector, an equivalent energy transition strategy for our military.”

Osinbajo also noted that in a country the size and population of Nigeria, with threats to the citizenry and sovereignty, in different locations, it is absolutely imperative that the nation builds its indigenous national defence capabilities.

“This means revitalizing our local military industrial complex and investing in the local capacity to manufacture armaments”.

He, therefore, commended the leadership of the academy for the innovation in the curriculum of the institution, urging the warrior-scholars (graduating cadets) to devote themselves as their forebears have done to preserving the unity of the country.

According to him, “the Armed Forces of Nigeria have long been considered one of the most unified and unifying of our institutions. We must not allow the rhetoric and actions of those determined to use ethnicity and religion to advance their often narrow and selfish interests to affect our belief in the righteousness, strength, and prosperity for all that a large diverse and united nation offers to all its peoples.”