Nigeria has deployed 50 volunteers of the Technical Aid Corps (TAC) to the Islamic University of Uganda where they will lecture until 2016.
Addressing the volunteers at the pre-departure ceremony in Abuja, the Director General of TAC, Prof. Pius Osunyikanmi said the delegation is part of about 1,500 volunteers to be deployed to 15 countries this year.
“One major aspects of Nigeria’s foreign policy is the Technical Aid Corps with the objective of providing technical know-how and manpower assistance to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. TAC was given birth to with the view to leveraging on the abundant human and material resources in the country using it as a platform to providing technical know-how to needy ACP countries.
“We have a total of 50 of you that will be departing for a single University in Uganda. You will be going there to render services as University lecturers. You are the second batch that will be posted in the last one month. Other batches going to Namibia, Rwanda, Burundi, and others will follow in due course. In all, we would be deploying about 1,500 within the next three months”, Osunyikanmi said.
He explained that President Goodluck Jonathan gave a charge that the recruitment process should be 100 per cent merit-driven and the Directorate’s frontiers should be expanded to cover more countries.
Osunyikanmi assured the Volunteers that Nigeria would stand by them adding, “Uganda is desirous of your services and you cannot afford to give less than what they desire of you. Discipline should be your watchword; you are carrying the Nigerian flag and you must be able to do Nigeria proud.
Ensure that you market and project Nigeria in its proper perspective. Let them know that indeed Nigeria is a country that is peaceful, progressive and developing. Let everybody who cares know that Nigeria is stable, progressive and that we are on an irreversible course in our journey to development”, he said.
The Corps is a federal department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was established in 1987 to leverage on the abundant human and material resources in the country using it as a platform to providing technical know-how to needy countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific States.
Prof. Osunyikanmi urged the volunteers to be disciplined and be good ambassadors of Nigeria.
