Foreign Service Academy graduates 107 diplomats

No fewer than 107 foreign service officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who participated in the 21st Regular Course of the Foreign Service Academy, have graduated.

Foreign Service Academy, situated in Lagos State was established in 1982 with the aim of training Foreign Service Officers before their posting to various Nigeria’s missions abroad.

Speaking during the closing ceremony of the regular course, last week in Abuja, the Director of the academy, Benedict Adejinle, said the institution has continued to fulfil its objective of training foreign service officers in the country.

“It gives me pleasure to report that the rate of success of 21st Regular Course of the Foreign Service Academy has been very high. The result showed that out of the 107 students, 105 were successful,” he said.

He said the goal is to bring the academy to the desired level as a first-class training institute comparable with other similar training facilities in the world.

Adejinle, however, lamented that paucity of funds remained the greatest challenge of the academy and that this has led to the decay of infrastructure in the school.

He called for special intervention from the ministry to address the major challenges so that the academy’s desired goal of first-class institution could be attained.

In his remarks, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry Foreign Affairs, Amb Bulus Lolo, who said the ministry would review the course syllables of the academy, pointed out that no one could become a Foreign Service officer unless it passed through the academy.

“The training you have received in the Nigeria Foreign Service is foundation training for you to prepare you for the realities that is out there in the diplomatic service. It is a service where you need every skill that you can get to negotiate, write, communicate, report and organise,” he said.

Lolo assured the graduates that they would soon be posted to countries where they would carry out their Foreign Service in the Nigeria’s missions abroad.