Plans to transform the Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre (NAFRC) into a degree awarding university is in top gear, a military top brass has revealed.
Addressing journalists in Lagos ahead of a passing out parade for the first course of the centre for 2018, the Commandant of the NAFRC, Air Vice Marshal Augustine Jekenu, said capacities and capabilities towards making the centre a degree awarding institution are being developed at higher quarters and very soon the dream would come through.
He explained that the future is quite bright for the centre and that the personnel of the centre are working round the clock to ensure that trainees get the required training they need to survive outside the shores of the Armed Forces.
AVM Jekenu had earlier said that the bill expected to transform the centre to a National Resettlement Institute which was presented to the Attorney General in 2014 is still being process, “There are moves to review the mandate of the centre, at higher quarters there are consideration for the training of commissioned officers in entrepreneurial and manager skills to make life meaning after retirement.”
He said that the transformation of the centre into a degree awarding university would not take long for it to come to reality, adding that the centre is expected to benefit from with the review of the Nigerian Armed Forces Act.
A total of 320 military personnel will retire from the armed forces next week, says Air Vice Marshal Austine Jekenu, Commandant, Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre (NAFRC).
Jekenu told newsmen at the centre, in Oshodi, in Lagos, on Wednesday, that the retiring military men were drawn from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy.
He revealed that no fewer than 320 military personnel comprising of 262 from the Nigerian Army, 44 from the Nigerian Navy and 14 from the Nigerian Air Force would be passing out next week from the centre, adding that, the retiring servicemen went through months of intensive training on skills acquisition and entrepreneurship at NAFRC.
Jekenu said that the training was to prepare the retirees for life after military service.
According to him, the centre has the mandate to provide necessary training geared towards preparing retiring servicemen for reintegration into civil life.
He said that the initiative was to enable the beneficiaries adjust and appropriately blend with the peculiarities of retirement and contribute actively to national economy as worthy civilians.
He said that since inception, the centre had graduated 41,000 personnel who have passed through the centre, adding that the task of the centre had evolved from that of rehabilitating and demobilizing soldiers of war to that of resettling able-bodied soldiers who are about leaving active service.
