By Abba-Eku Onyekachi
Senator Ifeanyi Patrick Ubah, representing Orumba North/South of Anambra State at Nigeria’s Senate has Tuesday moved a motion at the Senate for the Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) to review the entry qualifications into Nigerian Defense Academy, located in Kaduna for boys students.
Tabling his motion at the floor of the senate Tuesday, Senator Ubah therefore noted that NAF appropriates and spends a lot of money in the country’s military schools – Nigeria Military School, Nigeria Air Force School and Nigeria Navy Military School.
Reiterating that the NAF spends a lot in running the schools, he regretted that from 2013 to 2023, there had been a serious decline in the admission of students of military schools who have been gaining admission into the NDA, adding that statistics has shown that only 2.5% of total admission annually was secured by the Nigerian military school boys in the first or second attempt into the NDA.
He therefore lamented that Nigerian military school boys and girls of 11 to 12 years in the Army, Air Force and Navy schools were confronted with 50% academic and 50% training, compared with their counterparts in the civilian school who were yet not given special consideration and slot advantages for admission into the NDA.
Concerned that the ex military boys and girls, from data available were being frustrated auto the system after failures in advancement into NDA, which in turn makes them vulnerable and willing tools, (with their trainings) in the hands of many outlaw groups threatening the fragile national security, he faulted the entry requirements for the military school boys and girls, saying that it is unfair to the Federal Government that sounds tax funds to the school and the Nigerian NAF that devote manpower to their military trainings from childhood.
To this, the Distinguished Senator Ubah urged the Minister of Defence to set up committe on the entry requirements in NDA for notary school boys and girls. He also urged a committee on defense to looks into recruitment and admission process of the NDA with a view with a for a recommendstion for increasing the admission quota from the Nigeria military schools.
