The Nigeria Military School came into being on 20th May 1954 with an initial intake of thirty boys known
as the “First Platoon” who were sons and ward of serving military personnel. However it’s military history
can be traced to 1951 when the idea of establishing “Boys Company” along the same pattern of the Boys Wing of
British Army was conceived for each of the West African Colonies Namely: the Gambia, Gold Cost (Ghana), Nigeria and Sierra
Leone.
In May 1954 this idea came into being in Nigeria and the Boys Company was established as full fledged training
institution under the regimentation and administration of the defunct Nigeria Regimental Training Centre (NRTC) Now DEPORT
NA and under the command of Captain WU Bassey (Late), later Brigadier General one of the first Nigerian Commissioned Military
Officer. Two year later, the student’s population rose to 200. by January 1957, the aim of the school became the production
of ‘middle cadre skilled manpower’ to replace the departing British Colonial NCOs. Thus a lot of emphases was
shifted and laid on academics. A year later, that is in 1958 ten boys from the school sat for the overseas Armed Forces General
Certificate Examination. Their performance was impressive and the School following that changed to School Certificate Status.
In 1960, the name “Boys Company” was changed to “Nigerian Military School” with four
houses namely; Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Lagos House. To boost academic Excellency, major Wakeman, a graduate, was appointed
from the British Army Education Corps as Commanding Officer in 1962. The School therefore commenced five set years training
programme as a secondary school. In 1965 the first set of boys wrote the WAEC Examination in which they performed creditably
well. Since then, the school’s performance in such examination has been excellent.
The school from its establishment to date has produced numerous Senior Military officers and Senior Staff
in both Government and Private sectors.