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.”
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