The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, has lauded the leadership of the Nigerian Army Officers Wives Association (NAOWA) for their commitment to improvement of livelihood of the women in the barracks.
Attahiru gave the commendation when the President of NAOWA, Mrs Fati Attahiru, led the leadership of the association to pay a courtesy call on him on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that NAOWA had shown strong commitment in the area of provision of qualify education to barracks children in the past decades, adding that more needed to be done.
The COAS, however, urged the leadership of NAOWA to ensure more improvement in the quality of NAOWA schools across the country.
“I am equally impressive with the quality of education the NAOWA schools provide for our children.
“I have noted with interest your significance achievements in this regard and I want to implore you to do more because it is common knowledge that most of the things the children know today are learnt from school.
“Therefore, I task you to improve and ensure that all NAOWA schools teach the right values to our children.
“If we can collectively achieve this, it will help reduce incidences of drug abuse and other social vices that is on the increase among our youths today, especially with our youths and children in the barracks,” he said.
Attahiru also commended the women for their unwavering support for the officers and soldiers to diligently perform their assigned tasks as well as empowerment programmes to support the barracks women and children.
He pledged to provide the association with the needed support to expand its scope while urging them to start thinking about international collaborations to broaden their activities.
According to him, there is need for NAOWA to expand its scope so that the beneficiaries of its programmes can be competitive in today’s technology driven world.
“Let me seize this opportunity to say that as you plan your programmes, I intend to put NAOWA activities on the global stage.
“In this regard, I want NAOWA to start international collaboration first by visiting India and countries that will be of benefit to the association.
“Therefore, I have had discussion with my counterpart the chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army for members of NAOWA to visit India to see what their own sister organisation is doing with a view to learning a few things that will improve the activities of NAOWA,” he said.
Earlier, the President of NAOWA, Mrs Fati Attahiru, said the visit was to further strengthen the existing synergy between the Nigerian Amy and the association.
Mrs Attahiru said that her vision for NAOWA was to envisione a barrack community with self reliant women and youths that actively seek opportunities to achieve their fullest potential.
She said that her mission was to improve the quality of lives of women and youths in the barracks through the provision of sustainable livelihood opportunity, cleaner and greener communities and superior health facility that cater for both mental and physical wellbeing.
On empowerment, she said that the association had been able to access the NIRSAL Covid-19 palliative, a Federal Government intervention programme that provides start up grants to boost the businesses of small and medium scale entrepreneurs.
Mrs Attahiru, however, called for more support from Nigerian Army to enable the organisation to do more and ensure the realisation of its vision.