Leadership (Abuja)
Philip Nyam and Christiana Esebonu
12 November 2009
Abuja — Commandant General of the Nigeria Security Civil and Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Ade Abolurin, has disclosed that over 38,000 candidates applied for just 3,000 vacancies existing in the organisation.
He stated this while briefing House of Representatives Committee on interior when the later visited the NSCDC Headquarters in Abuja for oversight functions.
According to him, in the Federal Capital Territory alone, over 24,000 applied.
In his response, chairman of the committee, Hon. Jerry Manwe, who expressed satisfaction of the House on the activities of the NSCDC, assured that the House would impress it on the interior minister on the need for them to bear arms in the discharge of their duties.
He, however, threatened to given zero allocation to the ministry of interior should it fail to make proposal in the 2010 budget for the NSCDC for the procurement of arms and ammunition.
Manwe stated that the bill mandating the corps to be armed has been passed into law by the National Assembly but wondered why the ministry decided to disregard the act of parliament.
According to him ,"The corps has proved to all that it can be counted on in terms of maintaining peace in the country; there is no way you will expose its members to cartels and criminals with bare hands; for them to carry out their functions, they have to be armed adequately."
He lamented a situation where the corps would have to confront hardened and well armed criminals engaged in pipelines and power-line vandalization with bare hands leading to needless loss of their lives.
Manwe noted that the level of performance recorded by the Dr. Ade Abolurin-led corps was only indicative of the quality of service it could render when adequately equipped.
Responding to request made by the Commandant-General for the establishment of operational synergies between his corps and other security agencies, Manwe assured that his committee would liaise with all necessary committees in the House to ensure the requisite cooperation among all the agencies.
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