By Emeka Nze
Abuja
Peace Corps of Nigeria, led by Ambassador Dickson Akoh, and the National Unity and Peace Corps, led by Dr Chinedu Nnaji, which sponsored the Bill already passed into an Act of the National Assembly which established the Nigerian Peace Corps, are locked up in a war of supremacy and battle to outdo other in the bid to clinch the position of National Commandant or Commandant-General, as the case may be.
There has been also disagreement between the two bodies as to what designation the helmsman of the organisation will maintain if it is finally accented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.
While Nneji goes by the Commandant General, Akoh prefers to be called National Commandant.
“How can someone wake up without going through the military ranks, appoint himself as a general?”
Akoh and Nneji are laying claim to the position of the headship of the Corps by flaunting their credentials and experiences.
For Nneji, the vision which began in 1992 when his NGO was registered under the Ministry of Internal Affairs “will not be well enforced if another person is appointed to head it.”
He said: “As a matter of fact, there is no capacity of anybody heading Peace Corps that will match my own because if I give you my track record, my qualification in the university, you will see that you are talking to someone who groomed himself as a leader.
“I left the university in 1996 and I served with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) here in Abuja. I completed my service in 1998 and I went back to do my masters degree programme from 1998-2000. I completed in 2000 and remained in Abuja. I completed my PhD until 2011 before I secured my PhD. But within this period, I was running my consultancy programme with the World Bank.”
Akoh said: “I have been working for the Peace Corps of Nigeria since 1989 and no neophyte should take over the running because it is capable of rocking the boat.
“The Act establishing Nigerian Peace Corps has adopted more of his bill than that of Nneji’s National Unity and Peace Corps; what was dissolved is Peace Corps Nigeria to form Nigerian Peace Corps.”
