We are set to unite, restore respect to military, Commander Kenneth Garuba assures Nigerians, urges citizens to shun crimes, injustice

Assistant Commandant General, Leader of Nigerian Anti-Conflict Peace--Keeping Service, Kenneth Garuba, has urged Nigerians to shun crime and injustice as the two would never let the Nigerian state to develop.

Garuba was speaking to Journalists during the training of the Anti-Crime body at Agor Palaceway in Lagos on Saturday, March 25, 2023.

In his message to Nigerians, Commander Garuba said while advising Nigerians to shun crime and injustice stated that Anti-Conflict body was ordained by God to sensitise Nigerians to avoid crime, “Nigerians should be avoiding crime, because crime can never grow this country, crime can never make good thing to grow in this country, so my message to all Nigerians, they should let their children know, the fathers and mothers, should try to make sure they avoid crime, that is my message to Nigerians. Crime cannot help us at all, injustice cannot help us at all, covering what is bad, cannot help us at all. And now God is not happy, that is why God raise this body to put those things in order.”

Garuba who is Squad Commander in Nigerian Navy also spoke on the on the objectives of establishing the Anti-Conflict body, “Our mandate is to bring unity, from every arm of government, from Nigerian Army, Navy, Air-force, Police, and all that, we want to unite them, so that that space we created that make a lot of problems to enter, we want to cover it. And with togetherness we can cover that space. So one of our mandates is to unite all the armed men to see their love and return that respect of 70s, 80s, 90s, that respect we all know that the military carry at that time. We want to return it because for now, we in Anti-Conflict found out that that respect is gone, from every arm of government, all the armed forces including paramilitaries, that respect is gone. Now they are fighting and dragging themselves publicly, it was not like that before, so we want to make sure we cover that space.

“Secondly we are also security personnel; that is why you see uniform on us signed by the Federal Minister of Interior, so we are also training to be part of the people that do security job in Nigeria. We were also given a mandate of early warning, we pass warning by getting information from the community, getting information from the state, getting information from everywhere. So our duty is to pass early warning to every arm of government so that they will know how to ensure that conflict does not come. These are the things we stand for. Security, protection of lives and property, all these ones have been signed for us to take care of,” Garuba disclosed.

While stating that his organization is raising commanders in the 36 states of the federation, Garuba added that the group is recognized by the military hierarchy. “The process of Anti-Conflict started from, first registering it with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), we have approval from the CAC before we started and we furthered, because of the uniform and the security part of it, we further registered it with the Federal Ministry of Interior, and every arm of the federal ministry of interior acknowledge it under which you find all the paramilitaries. So all these things, we have the document even up to date. In Lagos here being the headquarters, anything we do we relate to all the army chiefs in Lagos, every barracks, police station, and CP of Lagos State, we also alert them. So they are aware of this body.”

Speaking on the qualification for admission into the body he said, “At Anti-Conflict we found out that age matters a lot, but your age doesn’t matter for now, from 50 years down, we can push you in, all we need from you is what God planted inside your brain that can benefit Nigeria; that is what we need from you. But this year we are trying to see how we can review that age requirement, we are trying to make it to 17 to 30 years.

“Other qualifications like BSc, BA we needed all these qualifications because most of the assignments or mandate of Anti-Conflict needs writing, so we need them, and we also need people that are trained in handiwork, because they have what Nigeria can benefit from, those that learn mechanic, carpentry, electricians, all those things, we can equally take them in,” Garuba said.  

He stated that Anti-Conflict started in 2018 in Lagos as Anti-Conflict Initiative, “From Initiative they push it to Anti- Conflict Awareness, now we are in Ant-Conflict Peace Keeping Service, we are now into service, all these started from 2018. And we are doing it voluntarily, just like that within that period of 2018/2019 to 2020 until when we started the process, then we are now seeing the value, the Ministry of Interior now give us service and gave us the assignment, division of labour, so we see now that they needed the army, police, everybody to be together so that we can carry out the job together.”

On membership of the body, he said “For now we are still running in thousands, this is the headquarters, and other states are still given us some numbers, and currently, this 2023, we are still having in mind that definitely, God will touch the youths, because we really want to use this body to subdue crime, so we are hoping by June, 2023, a large number will come from the youth, because the body was set up because of the youths.”

He added that the organization remained voluntary and “We are also pressing hard so that our bill gets to the National Assembly. We are just waiting for the election, let them finish and those elected to be sworn in, then we push our bill, and for now we pay ourselves.”

Speaking on where he intends to see the group in the next 5 years, he said “When you talk about next two, three years, in my own desire, I want this organization to be carried along with all Nigerian people within six months, one year, so by next five years the whole Nigerian youths have already have a hope of getting job, getting hope of what to do, and I think that is my expectation.”

On what disqualifies a person from being a member of the Anti-Conflict body, “For anyone that wants to join, first of all, let’s start from education, you must have your school certificate, graduates are allowed, if you have your master it is also allowed, but the main thing we can never take at all is stealing, it is against this body. If we find out that you are a thief, we cannot recruit you, even if you deceive us to enter, by the time we find out, we remove you. When we find out that you fight unnecessarily, you use the uniform to oppress people, instead of using the uniform to bring justice to every Nigerian people both men and women. So we are just trying to make sure that all those symptoms that bring the integrity of Nigeria down, we don’t have it, stealing, lying, fighting unnecessarily, injustice, if we find out that you have it, we can never allow you to be inside this body.”