Major General Stephen Olabanji, Commander, Training and Doctrine Command, Nigerian Army, says the Army is expected to commission about 3,885 cadets into the officer’s cadre in 2022.

Olabanji who made this known on Thursday in Abuja when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Army to defend its 2022 budget proposal, added that the army would enlist about 18,000 other ranks and a further special forces training of about 4,800 among those commissioned and other ranks cadre.

He said the essence of the special training is to further give the personnel some specialised training in the aspect of watermanship, deep-diver, airborne and living off the land.

According to him, other aspects of the training would be in the areas of target acquisition, tracker, assailing and rappelling, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency training, among others.

“These are all geared towards beefing up the personnel strength of the Nigerian Army and further increase her fighting capabilities in order to bring a lasting solution to the insecurity challenges in our country,” he said.

While noting that the training command is requesting for the sum of N43.3 billion for the year 2022 budget appropriation, Olabanji said his prayer was that the sum of N30.8 billion should be approved for the training as against the N25.5 billion in the appropriation bill.

Olabanji also said that N4.9 billion should be approved for the training command for the year 2022 overhead as against N200 million in the appropriation bill.

According to him, the sum of N7.4 billion should be approved for the training command for the 2022 capital projects as against N544 million in the appropriation bill.

“I therefore, humbly request this honourable committee to kindly approve the total sum of N43.3 billion, which covers the personnel emolument, trainees/instructors allowances, capital and overhead,” he said.