Tinubu approves recruitment of 28,000 Soldiers, 50,000 Police Officers

President Bola Tinubu has approved the recruitment of an additional 28,000 soldiers and 50,000 police officers as part of efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s security architecture and address rising insecurity across the country.

The approval is part of the administration’s proposed Five-Year Strategic Defence Operations Plan, which is designed to improve military effectiveness, expand operational capacity and strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activities.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council disclosed this in a statement issued on Sunday by its spokesperson, Dele Alake.

According to the statement, the recruitment of additional soldiers is intended to increase the military’s presence on the ground and improve its operational capacity.

“To further the manpower expansion drive, President Tinubu also approved recruiting an additional 28,000 soldiers to strengthen the military’s presence on the ground and enhance its operational effectiveness,” the statement said.

The council added that Tinubu had also approved the recruitment of 50,000 additional police officers to reinforce internal security, expand policing capacity and improve the country’s response to criminal activities.

It further disclosed that the President had created four new Army divisions and restructured existing military formations to expand operational coverage and improve responses to security threats.

The statement also said the administration had approved the establishment of two additional Army depots in Osogbo, Osun State, and Amasiri-Edda, Ebonyi State, to increase military training capacity and accelerate the recruitment of soldiers.

According to the council, each depot can accommodate 6,000 recruits at a time, giving the two facilities a combined training capacity of 12,000 soldiers.

It added that 5,210 recruits were already undergoing training at the Osogbo facility.

The APC campaign council also highlighted investments in military accommodation and operational infrastructure, including a 700-unit military barracks project in Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State.

On the fight against insurgency, the council claimed that military operations across the country had resulted in the killing of more than 15,000 Boko Haram terrorists and bandits over the past three years.

It also claimed that more than 130,000 Boko Haram fighters and their dependents had surrendered through Operation Safe Corridor, the Federal Government’s rehabilitation programme for repentant insurgents.

The council said the proposed Five-Year Strategic Defence Operations Plan would provide a long-term framework for aligning defence priorities, operational requirements, capability development and expenditure with the country’s security challenges.

“The initiative is a major component of President Tinubu’s determination to reposition the nation’s security architecture toward a more coordinated, intelligence-led, technology-enabled, and prevention-oriented system capable of addressing terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and other forms of criminality,” the statement said.

The council maintained that combining sustained military operations, increased manpower, modern technology and non-kinetic interventions would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to tackle insecurity.

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