The Ghana Particular Boat Squadron (SBS) has graduated its first batch of operators who have been 100% domestically skilled.
The eight new graduates accomplished the rigorous six-month course and have been the one ones out of a category of 25 to efficiently end and obtain particular forces badges. They skilled on the Naval Coaching Command in Nutekpor which was opened two years earlier. They are going to now be a part of the SBS, an elite particular forces unit skilled to counter piracy and trafficking and conduct opposed boarding of ships.
Constructing home coaching functionality is a serious a part of the nation’s SBS 5-year Growth Plan, which was created in partnership with the US and the Danish Particular Warfare Group generally known as the Frogman Corps.
The models are significantly necessary as Ghana seeks to guard its offshore oil and gasoline installations and its fisheries sector.
Chief of Army Employees Main Normal Thomas Oppong-Peprah praised the SBS as “quiet professionals” and stated they’re among the many most versatile and helpful devices within the nation’s nationwide safety toolbox, the Ghana Peace Journal reported.
“They function deep at sea and in distant areas making tough selections day by day in austere, unsure, and unstructured environments,” Oppong-Peprah stated on the commencement ceremony on 15 September.
Created in 2016, the Ghana SBS sometimes works in tandem with conventional models from the Navy or Army. Lt. Cmdr. Seth Dzakpasu, commander of the SBS, stated potential squadron members are volunteers from inside the Ghana Navy who’re screened and shortlisted to aim the coaching. The Primary Operator Functionality course is, he stated, essentially the most tough course there may be within the armed forces. It’s each “grueling” and “academically daunting” getting ready trainees to function in desert, mountain, jungle, river or sea environments.
After that, there are follow-on intermediate and superior programs all through an operator’s profession to sharpen abilities.
“The SBS course is in phases,” he advised ADF throughout the Naval Infantry Management Symposium held in Dakar, Senegal, in July. “It’s designed to first situation you to work in small teams and transfer quickly, then the opposite phases develop your mindset, the mindset to know the chances that a normal navy unit would possibly assume is inconceivable.”
The SBS cultivates particular forces abilities equivalent to velocity, safety, shock and function, he stated.
“These are the ideas that allow a small entity to tackle assaults which, historically, ought to have been carried out by a bigger entity, typically 3 times the dimensions, and obtain outcomes,” he stated.
Earlier SBS graduates have been skilled with the assistance of Nigeria. A robust partnership has developed between the Ghana SBS and the Nigerian Particular Boat Service, which has taken a lead position in a few of Nigeria’s hardest counter-terror fights.
Throughout a 2021 ceremony for the Nigerian Navy’s Primary Working Functionality course the place 10 Nigerians and 9 Ghanaians graduated, Nigerian Navy Rear Adm. Kamarudeen Lawal stated the connection between the 2 international locations has solidified by coaching exchanges.
“Ghana and Nigeria are two international locations which were working intently. We’ve got had varied workouts and trainings with Ghanaian officers. In most of our coaching establishments, we’ve Ghanaian officers instructing, and we even have Nigerians who’re instructing in Ghana,” he stated, in response to the Nigerian newspaper This Day. “So, we’ve come a good distance and I consider that is only a approach to additional strengthen our relationship.”
Written by Africa Protection Discussion board and republished with permission. The unique article could be discovered right here.
