The 1 Division, Nigerian Army Kaduna, on Monday, commenced the training of 2,000 Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) personnel on weapons handling.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the customs officers were drawn from Zone B of the customs service, Kaduna.
NAN also reports that the 2,000 participants were broken into 10 batches of 200 personnel while each batch would be trained for a period of four days.
The whole training, holding at the Martin Luther Agwai International Leadership and Peacekeeping Centre, Jaji, will last for 40 days.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1 Division, Nigerian Army Kaduna, Maj.-Gen Yahaya Faruk, said at the commencement of the exercise that the participants were expected to learn how to effectively and efficiently handle weapons, especially AK47 Rifle and pistols.
“It is a good effort in the right direction by the leadership of the NCS to initiate this noble idea.” You, the beneficiaries should therefore consider yourselves very privileged to be among those selected to benefit from this kind of initiative by your higher command.
“I assure you that my instructors and staff will do their best to impact the basic skills that will improve your capacity in weapons handing,” he assured.Faruk urged the participants to have open minds in order to derive maximum benefits from the training in view of the enormous resources committed to it by the customs authorities.
The GOC expressed gratitude to the Chief of Army Staff , Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai for the privilege and opportunity given to the Division to conduct this all important weapon training for the customs personnel.
Earlier, the Coordinator of the training, Emmanuel Agada, disclosed that the training was being conducted in three other Army formations across the country.Agada said these formations included 2 Division Ibadan, 3 Division Jos and 6 Division, Portharcourt.
He explained that the training was designed to refresh participants on various aspects of weapons handling in order to enhance their basic marksmanship skill, particularly on AK47 and pistols.
“The training will be achieved through series of instructional and practical shooting.” The training curriculum will cover topics such as, marksmanship principles, safety precaution, weapon mechanism as well as stripping and assembling,” he said. (NAN)
