ICRC, NDA Partner to Embed Humanitarian Law in Military Training
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) have joined forces to integrate humanitarian law and human rights principles into the training of future military operations to promote culture and respect.
Signing the MoU at the NDA headquarters on Tuesday in Kaduna, the academy’s Commandant, Maj.-Gen. John Ochai, said the partnership aims to integrate international humanitarian law into the improved NDA’s curriculum.
Ochai, represented by his deputy, AVM Sunday Aneke, said it would also ensure that the future military leaders at the academy were equipped to navigate complex conflicts with empathy and integrity.
Ochai said, through this collaboration, ICRC and NDA would jointly develop training programs, workshops, and research initiatives focused on humanitarian law, human rights, and military ethics.
His words, “The cadets needed the skills of ensuring human right in order to survive in the contemporary world.
”The MoU will ensure they become topnotch while leaving the academy as officers in the field and to keep themselves and everybody out of trouble.”
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The strategic partnership, the commandant said, underscored the shared commitment to promoting humanitarian values and upholding the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence.
Reacting, the Team Leader of the ICRC, Mr Yann Bonzon, said the MoU marked a milestone in its relationship with the Armed Forces of Nigeria in general but more specifically with the NDA.
Bonzon explained that the process of aligning the letters of the law with practice in the field is what the ICRC referred to as ‘integration’.
He said, “In a nutshell, integration of the law is the process of making arm carriers respond to operational situations as a reflex and in accordance with the dictates of the law.”
According to him, there is no better place to build the right reflexes for soldiers than during training.
“As the premier training institution for military officers in Nigeria, the NDA is best placed to build the right knowledge and reflex for officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria,” he said.
Bonzon equally said that in the course of the next five years, the ICRC would deploy its best resources to escort the integration process within the NDA.
He said it would hopefully open a new vista in the operational history of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.
“To be conducted by the ICRC, it would culminate with a tactical exercise without troops.
“The lessons learnt in the engagement would serve as material to fine-tune the implementation of the MoU over the next couple of years”, he said.
