With the recent retirement of service chiefs, the number of generals retired from the Nigerian armed forces in the last two years has reached at least 140, LEADERSHIP Weekend’s investigation has shown.
From the statistics available to LEADERSHIP Weekend, about 40 major-generals and 52 brigadier-generals were retired from the army, followed by the air force with 25 air vice-marshals and 40 air commodores; in the navy, about 20 rear-admirals and 38 commodores were retired between 2012 and 2014. This was confirmed by a top military officer who sought anonymity.
In a swoop, President Goodluck Jonathan recently retired all the service chiefs: the chief of defence staff (CDS), Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim; the chief of army staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Azubuike Onyeabo Ihejirika; and the chief of naval staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba. He however spared then chief of air staff (CAS) Air Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh and elevated him to chief of defence staff.
The new helmsmen who joined Air Chief Marshal Badeh are Lt-Gen. Kenneth Minimah (COAS), Air Marshal Adekunle Amosu (CAS) and Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin (CNS). As usual, the three service chiefs have reshuffled the teams they inherited, bringing in their officers. The implication of their action is that some generals and brigadier-generals are on their way out of the barracks due to various factors.
In the military, factors that lead to retirement from the three services include attainment of the age of 60 or 35 years in service and sundry reasons such as political expediency (especially retirement, if a junior officer is elevated to the rank of the service chief) or compulsory retirement for disciplinary reasons.
A serving general told LEADERSHIP Weekend on condition of anonymity: “In the last two years, about 100 generals and 40 brigadier-generals (using the terms you would understand) have been retired from the service. The reasons could be either on the attainment of 60 years or 35 years of service or political expediency.”
He said that since nature abhorred a vacuum “some of these generals are sent packing, others are being elevated to replace them because their retirements will create vacancies in the military”.
When asked to explain the political expediency, he said: “If someone that is junior in rank is elevated above his seniors, those seniors could be asked to request voluntary retirement, since they could not be asked to serve their junior. There are some exceptions like those favoured could be posted to the Defence Headquarters, or to the Army, Air Force or Naval headquarters where some of their mates are, if a junior in rank is posted as the commander where they are serving”.
He explained further that politicising of the service chiefs’ appointments had compounded the problem as some of the service chiefs had served beyond the 35 years in office and this means some of their colleagues or even juniors could be retired in order to inject new blood into the system. He also disclosed that some officers could be retired in order to allow someone who is of a lower rank to be elevated if the “powers that be want it so”.
When asked to give the distribution of the retired generals in the three services, he said the army has the highest number due to its numerical strength.
He said: “If an officer lost the opportunity to be promoted in three years, such an officer is expected to put in his paper for voluntary retirement, but if he failed to do that, he would be retired compulsorily. That is the rule.”
When asked to clarify compulsory retirement, he said those who failed to retire voluntarily would never be considered for any post-retirement appointments or assignments.
LEADERSHIP Weekend also gathered that a major-general is the officer that every officer wants to be even if it is for one day, because of its privileges such as financial entitlement.
“Any serving major-general is entitled to at least N1.3million monthly and another N1.5million for the running of his office. And once retired, he receives the same amount monthly. They are being given the same treatment like permanent secretaries,” another source said.
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