Insecurity: Gov Ishaku advocates 12 months compulsory military training for youth corps members

Story from Kenneth AFOR, Lagos

Taraba State Governor Darius Ishaku has called on the Federal Government to introduce a 12-month compulsory military training into the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.

Ishaku gave the suggestion on Wednesday in an interview on Channels Television while responding to the spate of insecurity in the country.

According to the Governor, the training would provide corps members with self-defence abilities when the need arises, citing Israel where a similar training is being to the citizens.

“The NYSC I will say should be two years. One year for compulsory military training and the other year for the social works that they are doing now so that anybody who graduates as an NYSC person can know how to handle the gun and defend himself,” he said.

“Just as it is done in Israel, Lebanon, etc, you must engage your citizens to be proactive. When you cannot provide security, you must allow the people to protect themselves.

While armed bandits and insurgent groups continue to be emboldened in the country’s North East and North West, the governor advocated that rural dwellers in the border communities should as well be trained on how to use firearms for self-protection and their communities against kidnapping and other criminal activities in the regions.

“I will still request the federal government that those who are at the border regions and those villages that are hard to reach, they must teach them how to use guns to protect themselves.

“You can’t leave human beings like that — at the whims and caprices of somebody who moves with an AK-47. This is wrong. They should train 10 or 20 people in each village along the axis of the boundaries,” he added.