By Philip Nwosu
The Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, Oshodi, will soon be transformed into a degree awarding university, a military top brass has revealed.
Addressing journalists in Lagos, ahead NAFRC’s passing out parade for 2017, the Commandant of the Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, Air Vice Marshal Augustine Jekenu, said capacities and capabilities towards making the centre a degree awarding institution are being developed at higher quarters.
AVM Jekenu also said the bill expected to transform the centre to a National Resettlement Institute, which was presented to the Attorney General in 2014, is still being processed. “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 managerial skills to make life for them meaning after retirement.” He said the transformation of the centre into a degree awarding university would not take long for it to come to reality, adding that with the review of the Nigerian Armed Forces Act, the centre is expected to benefit from it.
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.
He said that the centre would be graduating 295 trainees comprising 270 from the Army and 18 from the Navy and Seven from the Nigerian Air Force, pointing out that the objective of the NAFRC is to enable retiring officers have the capacity to productively re-integrate into the civil society upon retirement.