North West:5th Joint Military Region Graduates Forty IED Detectives.

April 10, 2022

The Commander of the 5th Joint Military Region, Brigadier General Nka Valère presided over the graduation ceremony of some 40 combined Defense and Security Forces (Army, Gendarme and Police) who completed a three-week indepth training on Improvised Explosive Devices' (IEDs) detection.

The graduation ceremony took place on Friday, April 08, 2022 at the Up station, Bamenda Headquarters of the 5th Joint Military Region.

Speaking during the event, Gen. Nka divulged that a spiral of targeted attacks on the defense and security forces as well as on civilians in 2021 necessitated the first training in June 2021 which saw an earlier graduation of 30 trainees whose results have been palpable on the field. "For the past 06 months, they have been capable of detecting and detonating over 90% of IEDs laid in ambush for the defense and security forces as well as the population in North West Region." This he stated, on April 08, 2022 while graduating a second batch of IED detectives.

General Nka in the presence of his counterpart, Brigadier General Ekongwese Divine Nnoko and other top-notch military officers ended his discourse by urging the graduates to exhibit the theoretical and practical security knowledge acquired within the past three weeks during field patrols. "You are now the detective eyes of your collegues during military patrols", he advised.

On his part, Colonel TETCHA Felix, Commander of the 51st Military Engineering Regiment, the Commander under whose tutelage the training was done, intimated that the 87 hours training course, was a perfect blend of theory and practicum. He furthered that the training was hinged on the following, inter alia: generalities on explosives, components of IEDs, how they function, measures on protecting and safeguarding against IEDs, potential points in the field for the planting of IEDs and above all, practical field exercises on detection and detonation of IEDs.

Colonel Tetcha thanked Brigadier General Nka Valère for seeing the need and providing for such a training. He did not forget to equally laud senior commanding officers who saw the importance and enrolled their collaborators into the course for the security of the region in particular and the nation in general.

It is worth noting that the theoretical part of the course took place at the 5th Joint Military Region while most of the practical part was done in the field through simulation exercises. The graduation ceremony was crowned with some simulation exercises by the trainees at the ceremonial ground. The graduating officers started the training course on March 21, 2022.