Agency Reports

By Sani Idris

A former Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Rear Admiral Sulaiman Sa’idu, on Thursday lauded the Federal Government (FG) for its strides in infrastructural development achieved across military formations in the country.

Sa’idu, who was the ninth CNS, gave the commendation while speaking at the commissioning of a newly-constructed Department of Maritime Warfare (DMW) complex, at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC), Jaji.

Specifically, he noted that the feat in infrastructural developments in the Nigerian Navy had played critical role towards actualising the National defence objectives, especially from contemporary Maritime Warfare perspective.

Sa’idu thanked the CNS and the Commandant of the AFCSC for sustaining the support provided to the DMW and creating the enabling environment for seamless construction of the complex.

Also, the CNS, Vice Admiral Auwal Gambo, said the DMW was amongst several initiatives in the comprehensive transformation plan articulated for infrastructural development towards effective discharge of the Navy constitutional mandate.

He added that the projects, which cut across Naval formations, were in addition to several other infrastructural developments in barracks and bases for personnel welfare enhancement.

Gambo noted that the new DMW complex would ameliorate shortages of office spaces and syndicate rooms currently experienced as well as provide necessary comfort to enhance teaching and learning.

He explained that the operations rooms in the complex would further assist to sharpen skills of officers in operational art, expected to be applied in the field.

He also urged personnel of the college to take absolute ownership of the complex and develop a maintenance culture so that the huge legacy project would serve future generations of senior officers.

Earlier, the Commandant of the AFCSC, AVM Emmanuel Wonah, said the College has continued to train middle-level officers in command and staff appointments.

He noted that the trained officers have contributed immensely to surmounting the prevailing threat of insurgency/terrorism and militancy across the country.

He explained that considering the projected increase in the number of students for future courses, it was timely that the training facilities are improved in the College to create a conducive learning environment to accommodate more students.

Wonah also noted that one of the challenges faced by the College was inadequacy of syndicate rooms in single-service terms, especially when both senior and junior courses happen to be in single-service terms at the same time.

He therefore said to address the challenge, the idea of constructing the DMW Complex was conceived.

“The complex will no doubt provide a conducive learning environment as well as address the challenges of syndicate rooms for lectures in the Department,” he added.

The Commandant thanked the CNS for the project, adding that he had continued to exhibit transformational leadership and strong commitment towards improving the state of infrastructure and amenities in the College.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the inaugurated DMW complex was named after the former CNS, Rear Admiral Sulaiman Sa’idu, who was in 1987, a Director of Naval Faculty at the college.

NAN also reports that the complex was equipped with a 207-seat capacity auditorium, 10 syndicate rooms, three briefing rooms, one operations room, foyer, offices and state of the art training facilities (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)