The Nigerian Army has expressed concern regarding the low turnout of applicants from the Southeast states in the ongoing 2025 Army recruitment program.
This development was made known by the Brigadier-General, Chima Ekeator while directing the recruitment enlightenment on Sunday. He revealed that while over 3,000 applicants have registered in Kaduna, only 100 have applied in Enugu state.
He encouraged Southeast youths to register in large numbers to complete their allocated quotas.
He said, “Our people are losing what rightly belongs to them. Each year, whenever a slot is being allocated to our people, we keep noticing that the number of applicants from our side is usually very poor.
“Take for example, Enugu State was given about 200 slots, but the people who made it were never up to 100 due to poor application. This has also become a recurring decimal in other states in the South East.
“Today’s statistics on the number of applicants show that Kaduna has about 3,000 applicants, while Enugu is still battling with about a hundred; and by the time we are through with screening, you will not have enough to recruit from the state.
“There are a lot of falsehoods out there stating that the Igbo are being killed because they are the first to be sent to the battlefield. These things are not true. After all, we that are here have risen high in the Army, and we are telling you that they are lies. Today, in the Nigerian Army, our brother is one of the top commanders in charge of equipment. His name is Chibueze Ogbuabo.”
Also, the commissioner for Youths and Sports Development, Barr.Lloyd Ekweremadu expressed his disappointment on the reoccurrence of the issue despite the efforts made to undo the trend. He requested for a review of means for advertising the opportunities and the needs to provide more details about benefits of serving in the Army.
He said, “While seated here, I was just trying to conduct very quick research and it appears this same problem is happening worldwide and militaries across the world are deploying more cutting-edge strategies for recruitment because we are talking about the new generation that you communicate in a different way from the past.”
