President Bola Tinubu has called on the armed forces to continue to protect Nigeria’s territorial integrity against all threats, as he lauded them for their commitment to duty and sacrifices for the nation.
Tinubu made this call while speaking at an event to commemorate the diamond jubilee of the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna on Saturday.
The president promised the military that his administration is committed to its welfare, it will support them in the discharging of its duties.
The NDA was established about six decades ago, on February 5, 1964. The institution has undergone various stages of transformation in its quest to fulfill its mandate of training officers for the Nigerian Armed Forces.
Before obtaining independence from Britain, Nigeria’s first set of officers were trained in Ghana and subsequently at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England. But by January 1964, four years after independence, the first batch of 64 army and navy cadets commenced training at the NDA.
Tinubu emphasized on some of the landmark achievements recorded during the transformation of the NDA to include the subsequent addition and training of Air Force cadets, the successful reunification of the country after the Civil War in 1967 as well as the various short-service military training programmes instituted to fill the manpower needs caused by the Civil War.
Other noteworthy achievements he mentioned include the upgrade of the NDA from a non-degree awarding institution to a full-fledged degree-awarding university in 1985, thereby phasing out the Nigerian Defence Academy Certificate of Education hitherto awarded to cadets.
