Participants of Services’ War Colleges on Wednesday, concluded the Strategic National Exercise/Joint Operations Planning Exercise, nicknamed “Ex SKY LOCK,”.
The exercise is designed to promote joint operations and enhance national security response,
The Commandant of the Naval War College, Rear Adm. Abdullahi Ahmed, said the exercise is aimed to equip participants with skills to effectively respond to contemporary security challenges facing Nigeria.
Ahmed said that the exercise served as a strategic exercise that culminated in the Professional Military Education (PME) packages at the National Defence College (NDC) and the three services war colleges.
He said the exercise covered various national security aspects, including strategic assessments, inter-agency coordination, logistics planning, and operations against terrorism and insurgency.
Ahmed said that while the participants were educated on various aspects of operations in the classroom, the exercise was the training aspect to cap all the education activities.
According to him, the significance of the exercise is to pull through all what they have learnt in the classroom.
This, he said, would help them to see the workability and to identify where gaps existed so as to be able to fix it in the event of any real scenario.
“Ex Sky lock is all about training and enhancing participants’ ability in the act of operational warfare in terms of our current challenges, such as internal security issues, militancy and the like.
“ At the end of the course, my expectation is for them to go to the field well prepared as operational commanders, to be able to pull through any task given to them, to carry out and achieve all the objectives as expected,’’ he said.
The commandant commended the participants for their dedication and effort throughout the exercise.
He emphasised the importance of applying the knowledge and skills gained during “Ex Sky Lock” to their respective operational engagements to strengthen national security.
“The scenarios designed for the exercise aimed to simulate real-life situations, thereby providing the participants with hands-on experience in managing complex security operations,’’ he added.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the participants were drawn from the Army War College Nigeria; Naval War College Nigeria, and Air Force War College Nigeria.
According to the training highlight, the comprehensive exercise involved rigorous planning and execution phases, focusing on enhancing the participants’ ability to operate cohesively in joint and inter-agency environments.