The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, has backed the idea of the establishment of coastal and border guards in the country.

Receiving the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brigadier General Paul Boroh (Rtd.). in his office in Abuja on Thursday, General Buratai said it is high time the country establishes a Coast Guard or a semblance of it to help secure the country’s coastal areas, and that the beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty should have a role to play in it.

He said Border Guards are also necessary to help with securing the borders especially in the borders with Cameroun in the South South, and in the North Eastern part where the country is experiencing insurgency.

General Buratai said suggested agencies like coastal and border guards can both be self-sustaining as well as reduce unemployment in the country.

He said General Boroh was a role model in the Military Academy and that his well-deserved appointment “received wide acceptance in the country.”

The Army Chief of Staff said General Boroh’s knowledge and experience are important in his new assignment and that the Army will collaborate with the Amnesty Office in training the Amnesty beneficiaries.

General Boroh thanked General Buratai for his support for the Amnesty Programme, adding that the Amnesty Office will collaborate with the Nigeria Army Resource Centre which is dedicated to security, training, research and consultancy.

He said the Amnesty Programme is in its last stage of sustainable integration; a point it needs the support of strategic partners, including the Army to fully reintegrate the Amnesty beneficiaries back into society.

General Boroh said, the Amnesty beneficiaries can also benefit from some form of military or paramilitary training that would enable them provide needed security in places like oil platforms and the coastal areas.

He said 1,224 of the Amnesty beneficiaries are to be empowered within the next few weeks to enable them fully integrate and that the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps is helping to train 200 beneficiaries, adding “Our strategy is to train, empower or employ” the beneficiaries.

He said already half of the 882 women under the Amnesty Programme have been empowered and successfully integrated into society.

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