COAS to Graduating Middle-level Officers: Justify Investment in Your Advanced Leadership Training  

Linus Aleke in Abuja 

The Chief of Army Satff (COAS), Lt Gen Taoreed Lagbaja, yesterday, tasked participants of the Leadership and Strategic Studies Course two (LSSC), 2023, to justify the investment of the Nigerian Army in building their capacity to help the Nigerian military and other security agencies to estimquish the raging inferno of terrorism, insurgency, banditry kidnapping, farmers/herders clashes, secessionist agitations and other emerging security threats across the federation. 

Gen Lagbaja gave this charge, during the brief, but colourful graduation ceremony of the 36 participants of the Leadership and Strategic Studies Course two, 2023, at the prestigious Nigerian Army Resource Centre, in Abuja on Friday. He further charged them to return to the system and not only go out and do the NARC and NA proud, but also make a positive impact that will signpost the loyalty, dedication and professionalism that the Nigerian Army is known for.

The Special Guest of Honour, said that the Leadership and Strategic Studies Course is a senior level programme designed to give the Direct Regular Commission officers, and others found suitable to undertake the course, a mirror of what their Regular Combatant colleagues go through at the National Defence College. 

Stating that the curriculum for the training, was deliberately designed to cover eight thematic areas of leadership and management, policy and strategy, research methodology, entrepreneurship, psychology, national security and defence economics, military history and war studies, peace support operations, and logistics planning.

He noted that the graduates of the course are awarded a professional Master’s Degree in Leadership and Strategic Studies (MLSS), by the NDA, while the NARC tops that up with a Fellowship in Leadership and Strategic Studies (flss), so, technically, participants get two for the price of one.

The course he added is a strategic level programme that accustoms participants to policy and strategy formulation at the lower strata of the military strategic level, stating that the programme gives participants an understanding of issues at the grand strategic level and how senior leaders in the Armed Forces interpret policies to formulate military strategy. 

“Thus, the experience of the past 11 months is expected to have enhanced the participants’ capacity in policy analysis, argumentation, and evaluation and provided them with advanced functional and robust research skills in leadership and strategic studies, amongst others. I have no doubt this set of graduates, like their predecessors, are ready to return to the field to make a positive impact and justify the NA’s investment in their personal and professional development,” he said.

Lagbaja noted that the NA has, in recent years, made a deliberate effort to significantly increase its investments in developing operational and strategic level leaders required to think out of the box and interrogate issues sufficiently and objectively to make informed decisions. The Army Chief averred that the political and economic reality of present day Nigeria requires senior leaders to be ingenious in employing available resources – human and material, to fulfil operational objectives.

According to him, “Economics 101 taught us that human wants are unlimited, but the resources are finite. This basic economic concept equally applies to military operations because you will not always have sufficient measures in terms of human and material resources”. 

Lagbaja recalled that the military cannot procure an efficient military; but  can only build it over time with defined policy, focused investment, and consistent training to enhance capacity and capability for today and tomorrow’s operational demands. 

He then said that this belief shaped the NA’s design for continuous training of its personnel at all levels and the crafting of his command philosophy, “to transform the Nigerian Army into a well-trained, equipped and highly motivated force towards achieving our constitutional responsibilities within a joint environment.”

Director General, Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Maj Gen Garba Wahab, rtd, said that the Nigerian Army has had a wonderful feedback from the training.

“If the feedback had not been positive, I am sure Army Headquarters would have queried the centre or ask us to either stop or do something but we had actually been applauded and most of our programme had been approved and we are set for course three, in the next three weeks course three will assemble. What we are trying to do is to level the playing ground, emphasis had been on combatnt officers and the direct regular officers had been left unattended to. So this is part of the effort to raise their own level of awareness and training and we believe that the level of proficiency will improve”. 

On how the capacity building will translate to curbing the spiral security threats in the country, Wahab said, “Tackling the security situation, just like we told them too, is not a sole service responsibility, it is everybody’s job but they must have an open mind to want to relate and relate with everybody that matters, they must take everybody along. Wherever they find themselves they must find a way of relating with locals to get them to believe in whatever they are doing”. 

In his vote of thanks the Executive Director, Consult, Maj Gen Sadiq Ndalolo, said that gratitude is the attitude that will take you to your altitude. 

According to him, “As the Director General is directing Nigerian Army Resource Centre to greater altitude, we shall continue to demonstrate an attitude of gratitude to the Chief of Army Satff for his unwavering support to the centre”.