Buhari joined army through officers’ visitation to schools, says Masari

Katsina State Governor Aminu Masari has extolled the army’s visitation to secondary schools to encourage students to join the armed forces, saying that President Muhammadu Buhari was among those that were enlisted into the army through such visits.

The governor was speaking yesterday when he received the Director of Psychological Operations in the Defence Headquarters, Abuja, Cdre. James Pinder, in his office at the General Muhammadu Buhari Government House, Katsina. Masari also said that Generals Hassan Katsina and Musa Yar’Adua (both of blessed memory) didn’t join the army until military personnel visited their schools.

Career prospects campaign embarked upon by the National Defence Headquarters (NDH) was how the institution started years back, he disclosed, adding that such effort had seen the military produce some of the nation’s brilliant officers.

The governor said the NDH had reinvented itself to the task of bringing Nigerians together through the campaign and subsequent recruitment process, and that the effort would help keep the army from religious, ethnic or regional colouration.The country was able to come out of the civil war because the military was at the time peopled by sons and daughters of people from various backgrounds.He, however, called on the military to provide a level-playing field for Nigerians who wish to enlist into the army.

Cdre. Pinder said they were in the state as part of directive to conduct sensitisation lectures on career prospects in the armed forces to select secondary schools, colleges and universities in the North West geopolitical zone.Pinder said the lecturing team consisting of three senior military officers and eight soldiers had earlier visited three schools in each of the state’s three senatorial zones.

According to him, at Government Girls Secondary School in Sandamu Council, students from 23 schools attended the lecture on career in the military.At Government College, Funtua, he said students from 18 schools attended the lecture, while students from seven schools participated in the lecture at Dikko College, Katsina.He added the lecture would be rounded off in tertiary educational institutions in the state before they move to Jigawa to continue with the career guidance lectures.