Deploy women to fight Boko Haram - Aisha Buhari tells Buratai, Adamu, others
- Wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, has charged service chief in the fight against Boko Haram
- The First Lady asked the military authorities to deploy women soldiers to the battle ground
- General Gabriel Olonisakin, the CDS, said the Nigerian Armed Forces has implemented various initiatives and policies to mainstream gender perspectives into the military
In her husband's efforts to wipe out Boko Haram insurgents from Nigeria, the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, on Thursday, September 12, gave a new charge to the leadership of Nigerian Armed Forces.
Sun reports that she urged the military authorities to deploy more women soldiers for internal security operations in the fight against insurgents.
Legit.ng gathered that she said unless the armed forces redefine the role of women and explore their potential for operational effectiveness, the insecurity in the country would still remain the way it is.
Speaking at the opening of the Defence Headquarters maiden annual conference on women peace and security at the national defence college, Abuja, she maintained that injecting women in the theatre of operations had become necessary rather than restricting them to catering, finance, human resource, personnel, logistics and other support arms.
The First Lady also noted that the insurgency war and other security operations embarked on by the military in the country would have yielded better result if it had explored the potentials of women because of their patience, perseverance and passion about their assigned tasks.
The one-day conference had as its theme, The imperative of gender mainstreaming in the Armed Forces for operational effectiveness.
Represented by Hajol Sani at the occasion, Mrs Buhari said: “The security issues bedeviling our country still abound probably because we are yet to redefine the Armed Forces of Nigeria to explore the potential of women for operational effectiveness. Women possess the traits of patience, perseverance, and passion.
“There is a need for the reformulation of laws and policies that border on the inclusion of women in the strategic reformation of effective operational deployment. The wide margin and lack of flexibility in structures based on gender should be abridged.
“Let me at this outset state that I and a good number of Nigerian women regard ourselves as soldiers; this is because we are the protectors of the family and the home; these are our frontier and territories.”
The wife of the president added that women do not adapt to the armed forces as easily as men due to their genetic make-up, saying that gender stereotype against women is a potential threat to women’s advancement in the military.
In his address on the occasion, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Gabriel Olonisakin, said the Nigerian Armed Forces has implemented various initiatives and policies to mainstream gender perspectives into the military.
He said: “Currently, the Armed Forces of Nigeria has attained 27.7 percent female participation in peacekeeping operations. This is higher than the UN recommendation of 17 percent.”
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) destroyed two ammunition-laden gun trucks belonging to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in Borno.
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Source: Legit.ng
