The Nigerian Army has finished a month's training of 172 troops in northern Nigeria before deploying to Guinea-Bissau as part of a peace-keeping mission, the Nigerian Army said.
According to the Army's Chief of Operations Major-General Taoreed Lagbaja, the contingent will form Nigeria's Company 2 Stabilization Mission in the mission supported by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Guinea Bissau.
Training of the troops began on 21 March at the Martin Luther Agwai International Leadership and Peace-Keeping Centre (MLAILPKC) in northern Nigeria.
Director of Peace Support Operations Major-General Bayode Adetoro said that the purpose of the pre-deployment training was to hone the troops' experience in peace-keeping operations as well as to give them "the necessary skills to protect themselves, the equipment of the ECOWAS mission in Guinea-Bissau and the citizens of Guinea-Bissau, the host country, in carrying out the mission's mandate."
Discussing the purpose of the mission, Adetoro said that sending troops reaffirms Nigeria's commitment to deploying quality peace-keepers as part of its contribution to global peace and security.
His views were echoed by the Commandant of the Martin Luther Center, Major-General Emmanuel Undiandeye, who described Nigeria as a West-African state which tries to bring peace to the region.
"Nigeria has, since the Sixties, contributed troops to different peace-support operations ranging from the Congo, Yugoslavia and Lebanon, amongst others," he said. "As the powerhouse of the West Africa sub-region, Nigeria has committed both human and material resources to the attainment of peace in the sub-region."
At last June's ECOWAS summit in Ghana, the bloc's members decided to send a peace-keeping force to Guinea-Bissau to help settle the instability in the country after an attempted military coup. At the end of the year, the West African bloc's members agreed to establish a regional peace-keeping force to tackle terrorism and coup attempts among ECOWAS members.