Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has said any half-trained soldier is dangerous to the existence of civilians.

Musa said this when he featured on 30 Minutes, a Trust TV programme.

Lamenting the worsening spate of internal security challenges, he said efforts were ongoing to recruit more personnel to tackle bandits and terrorists.

He, however, said the training of troops should not be rushed so as to avoid calamity in which a half-trained soldier becomes a threat to Nigerian people.

“We do recruitment. I know that in the Army, every year we recruit nothing less than 12,000,” Musa said.

He added the recruitment is not restricted to the army but other arms of the security agencies including the police are also recruiting.

“It is not enough but efforts are being made to increase the number. The Police, Air Force and Navy are also recruiting. So it is not one-sided.

“And I can tell you that what it takes to feed this number and sustain them is huge. But we don’t want to rush training because for us, a half-trained soldier is the most dangerous element.

“We want to make sure that once you do your first six months you would come out and we will give you another three months so that we are sure that when you go out you don’t just go and start killing civilians.

“I wanted to also tell you that sometimes this operation seems to be long because it is not like the conventional type,” he added. (Daily Trust)

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