Nigerian Army Tasks Officers, Soldiers on Critical Thinking

The Acting Chief of Training (Army), Maj.-Gen. Abubakar Ndalolo, has tasked officers and soldiers on evolving critical thinking in managing security operations in the contemporary security environment.

Ndalolo stated this while addressing participants, who graduated from the Leadership Skills Development Course 1/2021, at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre (NARC), Abuja on Friday.

He said that the course, prepared for middle and junior cadre officers and soldiers, was aimed at enhancing their creativity and critical thinking skills to enable them to adapt to the evolving security environment.

According to him, the course would further help them in developing result-oriented emotional intelligence to tackle real and emerging security challenges as they emanate amongst troops and citizenry in their areas of responsibility and the country at large.

“We want to develop a critical thinking capacity and emotional intelligence which will help them to perform their tasks diligently in line with the contemporary operating environment.

“As a leader at your level, your ability to think fast and exercise command and control of troops placed under you is paramount to the success and growth of the Nigerian Army and the country.

“With the training given to you, it is expected that you imbibe the Chief of Army Staff’s Command Philosophy which rest on four pillars of Professionalism borne from knowledge and performance, Readiness from training and empowerment, Administration and Cooperation with other security elements within the system, which you must implement at your level.

“This is in line with and are actually the drivers of COAS’ vision which is to develop “a Professional Nigerian Army Ready to accomplish Assigned Mission within a Joint Environment in Defence of Nigeria,” he said.

Ndalolo, therefore, commended the NARC and its resource persons for bringing the personnel development policy initiative to reality.

He also admonished the participants to see their certification as the beginning of the learning process towards becoming good leaders and followers wherever they are deployed for the benefit of the Nigerian Army and the nation in general.

“I am, therefore, convinced that you have all benefited from this important leadership development programme, for your individual benefit and that of the system as a whole,” he said.

Speaking, the Director-General, NARC, retired Maj.-Gen. Garba Wahab, said the course was borne out of the desire to proffer a solution to the myriad of security challenges bedeviling the country.

Wahab said that the nation was currently facing serious security challenges of which everybody must be able to play their parts in addressing them.

He expressed confidence that the participants had developed capacities to contribute their quota towards addressing the prevailing security challenges.

He thanked the COAS for approving the course and providing the resources for its realisation and urged participants to deploy the knowledge they had acquired in their future operations.

Also, the Director of Human Resources, NARC, Brig. -Gen. Usman Bello, while presenting the course highlights, said the pilot course on Leadership Skills Development was conducted for 60 participants, comprising 30 officers and 30 soldiers.

Bello disclosed that the participants were loaded with five-course modules on critical thinking, emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship, leadership and mentorship.

He said that the objective of the course was to increase creativity and critical thinking skills amongst participants for optimal performance and introduce adaptive leadership for innovative and creative change among others.

“It is to also develop emotional intelligence, decision making and entrepreneurship skill and enable participants, particularly junior officers, to understand the significance of mentorship for successful career development,” he said.