The Nigerian Technical Aid Corps has commended President Bola Tinubu for his 4-D Foreign Policy that has kept the agency alive and active.

The Director-General of NTAC, Dr Yusuf Yakub, gave the commendation on Friday in Abuja.

Mr Yakub spoke during the deployment of 21 Technical Aid Corps (TAC) volunteers to The Gambia, and the orientation of 15 returned volunteers from the same country.

He said that deployment was in keeping with the mandate of NTAC to deploy technical assistance to Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

According to him, it is in furtherance of Nigeria’s soft power diplomacy to bridge the education and professional gaps in the region.

He added, “The agency is fully alive, thanks to President Tinubu. This is because of foreign policy agenda which are Democracy, Development, Demography and Diaspora. That has given us the leverage to be able to do what we are doing. In the past two years we have achieved a lot.’’

Mr Yakub said that TAC was an instrument for soft power diplomacy to serve as a tool of sending out professionals or technical aid to ACP countries.

He said, “In the past 38 years, we have reached out to over 40 countries and deployed over 10,000 volunteers.’’

The director-general said that the initiatives were for NTAC to be a tool for eradicating unemployment in the country, and to ensure that Nigerian professionals were well placed and productive.

He noted, “In the past two years, the agency has been deploying volunteers almost every month to different countries, and my dream is to see NTAC serve as a tool for eradicating unemployment in Nigeria. Due to the good track record that NTAC volunteers have left in the minds of the countries they have served, Nigeria has gained a lot of respect from these countries. In one of my bilateral meetings with the minister for health in Jamaica, they asked for more volunteers.’’

One of the volunteers and social psychologist from the Ekiti State University, Dr Emmanuel Bankole, said that as a researcher and teacher, he would be transferring the knowledge he gathered to the students in the host country.

Mr Bankole, who is the Team Lead of the volunteers, said that said that they were going to The Gambia to disseminate the knowledge, skills and talent they had gathered over the years.

He said, “As we are going to the Gambia, we will develop our students intellectually in the next two years, train them so that at the end of our time with them, Nigeria’s name will continue to flourish.’’

The 21 TAC volunteers are to be deployed to The Gambia while 15 volunteers were received back from the Gambian at the NTAC Headquarters after their 24-month service to Nigeria and humanity.

(NAN)