Top military officers who are senior to the newly appointed service chiefs have up to Monday to voluntarily retire from service.
Defence Headquarters gave the order in a memo dated June 26 and signed by Maj Gen Y. Yahaya on behalf of the Chief of Defence Staff.
The memo was directed to generals, brigadiers-general, air vice marshals and rear admirals in the Nigerian Army, Air Force, and Nigerian Navy, who are senior to the new service chiefs.
The development was a sequel to the appointment of new service chiefs by President Bola Tinubu on June 19.
The retirement of senior officers across the three services is a military tradition that officers who are senior to the service chiefs would be retired.
DHQ in the memo with reference number DHQ/I5/PLANS/801/13 directed all officers commissioned before the Nigerian Defence Academy Regular Course 39 to turn in their voluntary retirement from service with immediate effect.
The memo explained that the order was in preserving and upholding the tenets of the military profession which values hierarchy and service discipline.
The memo, copied to the Army, Navy, and Air Force headquarters, read in part, “It would be recalled that the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently appointed new CDS and Service Chiefs on June 19, 2023.
‘’In order to preserve and uphold the tenets of the military profession which values hierarchy and service discipline, it is important that all officers whose officer cadet courses run seniority above that of the current Service Chiefs disengage from the Service.
“Consequently, I am directed to respectfully request services to direct all officers with seniority on commission above that of NDA Regular Course 39 to submit their applications for voluntary retirement from Service with immediate effect. I am to add that affected officers are to submit their applications to their respective Service Headquarters no later than Mon July 3, 2023.”
The spokesperson for the Army, Onyema Nwachukwu, said such statistics are not available as at the time of filing this report.
His Nigerian Navy counterpart, Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, said, only the acting DDI, DHQ (Director, Defence Information) can speak on this.
“Already there were speculations in some print media on this. Nevertheless once cleared and permitted, it’ll be disclosed,” Ayo-Vaughan said.
The spokesperson for the Nigerian Air Force, Air Commodore Ayodele Famuyiwa, on the number of those senior officers in the NAF affected, simply said he is handing over to his successor on Monday.
