COAS appointment: There’ll be no mass retirement in Army
Following the appointment of Major General Farouq Yahaya as the 22 Chief of Army Staff, a Course 37 Regular Intake of the Nigerian Defence Academy and the fear that his seniors of Courses 35 and 36 may be asked to proceed on mandatory retirement in the Nigeran Army, the Defence headquarters has said there would be no retirement of such.
Acting Director, Defence Media Operations, Brigadier General Bernard Onyeuko, disclosed this in Abuja yesterday.
He said, “You are all aware of the appointment of the new Chief of Army Staff, Major Gen. Farouq Yahaya. This has stirred a lot of rumours in the media about mass retirements in the military.
Investigations, however, revealed that under the new harmonized terms and conditions of service for the armed forces, military officers who want to proceed on such retirements can only do so voluntarily.
The new terms and conditions of service states that officers can only retire when they have completed the mandatory 35 years in service or reached the retirement age that goes with a particular rank.
It was gathered that, in the past, mandatory retirement of such officers, following appointment of service chiefs which is no fault of theirs, had robbed the military and the nation a large number of highly trained and experienced officers for which the nation spent billions of naira to train
This has impacted negatively on the pool of such experienced officers, needed for the mounting security challenges the nation is grappling with.
