The federal government has said that it will send Technical Aid Corps of Nigeria (TACN) volunteers to 50 countries within the next three years as part of its soft power diplomacy.
The Director General of TACN, Dr Yusuf Yakub, disclosed this during a debriefing and presentation of certificates to 23 TAC volunteers who recently returned from Uganda in Abuja on Sunday.
He said, “What we are doing today is to receive some of our volunteers who have served the country for two years in various capacities.
“All the 23 volunteers that we are receiving back home today are professors or doctors in different areas of specialisation who served in Uganda for two years.
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“Our target is to make sure we have volunteers in 50 countries in the next three years.”
He said the federal government had already deployed three groups of Nigerian volunteers in the last two months, adding that there would be a continuation of deployment in the first quarter of 2024.
He noted that the corps was established in 1987 “to deploy soft power diplomacy to our sister African countries, the Caribbean and the Pacific.”
Speaking about the returnee volunteers, Dr Yakub said because the volunteers did exceptionally well, Uganda was pleading for their tenure to be renewed for another two years.
He said, “Because our volunteers have showcased themselves excellently well in their areas of service, these countries are asking us to renew their stay. But since it’s against our policy to renew their stay as volunteers, the countries are free to go into contract with them and engage them.
“TACN will make sure that we support these volunteers who have gotten offers to continue to serve in those countries we have sent them to serve.”
The Director of Programmes at TACN, Mohammed Mohammed, said the debriefing exercise was aimed at collecting information about the volunteers’ experiences which would enable the corps to improve its interaction with benefitting countries.
Speaking earlier, the team lead of the volunteers, Dr Ibrahim Babangida, thanked the federal government for giving them the opportunity to serve.
He said some of them were deans, associate deans and directors in universities in Uganda, expressing joy about the impact they made during their stay.
