The Army has said it is not recruiting youths to fight Boko Haram terrorists and insecurity in the country.
The Director, Army Recruitment, Resettlement and Reserve, Brig.-Gen. Emmanuel Akpan, who stated in Ibadan on Monday, noted that the planned recruitment was not only to fight insurgency in the Northeast, but also to fill some openings in the system.
Akpan spoke while addressing youths in Oyo State during a sensitisation talk as part of a nationwide enlightenment campaign tour on the planned recruitment of Special Forces into the Army.
He explained that the recruitment into the Special Forces was targeted at having an Army where every soldier is able to think and fight critically, be creative and take rational decisions in tackling problems with little or no supervision.
He further noted that by their training, it was expected of the soldiers to always tackle threats to internal security, including counter-insurgency operation in the North-Eastern part of the country.
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Akpan said: “The Nigerian Army, like every other organization, recruits personnel. Some are retired and when they are retired, and there is a need to fill that gap the Nigerian Army can organise recruitment to fill such gaps. It is not that we are recruiting to go and fight Boko Haram.
“The constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) has delineated roles and responsibilities for the Nigerian Army and when duty calls, we have to respond, whether to fight in the counter-insurgency operation of the North East of Nigeria or any other internal security operation.
“Every citizen has the opportunity to enroll into the Nigerian Army and five per cent of any recruitment done in the states is given to the female gender.”
On quota system in the recruitment, the recruitment director said all states will be given the same quota and they will be at liberty to share among their various local government areas.