NDA @60: Academy bedrock of Nigerian Armed Forces – Commandant

The Commandant, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Maj.-Gen. John Ochai, says the academy is the bedrock of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.

The commandant stated this at a special Juma’at prayer to mark the NDA’s 60th anniversary at its central mosque on Friday in Kaduna.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ochai was represented by Navy Commodore Danjuma Ndanusa, the academy’s director of administration.

Ochai said, “The special Friday prayer is to mark the milestone that was achieved, being a celebration of a diamond jubilee.”’

He recalled that the NDA was established in 1964, which would, in a few days, make the institution 60 years old.

Ochai said that was the essence of the special Friday sermon, which, even customarily every year, the institution celebrates.

He added that the NDA was a subset and one of the most prestigious institutions of the armed forces, where officers and other military leaders were produced.

The commandant stressed the need for discipline, which is the bedrock of the military.

According to him, the NDA is the mother of discipline, and if it ceases to exist, it would affect the officers’ corps who are produced for the nation.

Ochai added that the message of the special Friday sermon was to re-emphasise the need to sustain discipline in academics so that it could be achieved generally in the armed forces of Nigeria.

Earlier, the Chief Imam of the NDA Central Mosque, Cpt. Musa Yusuf, had said that the focal point of the sermon was to emphasise justice in whatever one was doing.

According to him, justice makes communities and societies be assisted by Allah.

Yusuf quoted the Holy Prophet, saying, “How will Allah certify a nation or community, or purify them, where the strong ones among them do not support the weak?”

He, therefore, said that the answer simply meant that such a society would never be supported or helped by Allah.

Relating his sermon to the anniversary, Yusuf urged that hatred as a result of differences of religion, geographical location, and tribe, among other differences, should not be a yardstick in making judgement.

He said that when one found himself or herself in an institution like the NDA, togetherness as brothers was critical, irrespective of religion or any other difference.

“This is what Allah categorically said: we must relate with everyone with justice because that is the only way we can achieve our aim of producing officers or leaders for our great nation,” Yusuf said.

NAN reports that the Saviour’s Chapel (Protestant), NDA Afaka, will hold the interdenominational church service on Sunday.

NAN