THE ARMY AND 38 OFFICERS

The army should act within the law

With the release last week of Amnesty International Report 2016/2017 “The State of The World’s Human Rights”, the Nigerian Army has disputed the aspect touching on Nigeria which alleged extrajudicial killings and torture of 240 people in the North-east and 177 pro-Biafran agitators. In what has become the standard annual reaction, the acting Director, Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar described the report as a continuation of Amnesty International’s “series of spurious fabrications aimed at tarnishing the good image of the Nigerian military.”

Unfortunately, while the army is quick to attack Amnesty International, evidence within depicted a gross disrespect for the rights of its own officers some of whom were last year retired without due process. The question then is: How do you expect an institution that violates its own rules to respect the rights of the ordinary Nigerians? The Nigerian Army will have to do more if it wants to regain the confidence of Nigerians and the international community in the area of human rights.

Against the insinuation that the retirement last year had sectional and political undertones, the army released a statement to say that “only 38 senior officers were affected by the retirement exercise,” comprising of nine Major Generals, 10 Brigadier Generals, seven Colonels, 11 Lieutenant Colonels and a Major. The statement added that the army authorities were “aware that some mischievous elements are trying to whip up sentiments. This is quite unfortunate because all the affected officers were retired based on service exigencies and in line with the Armed Forces Act, CAP A20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.”

However, that has not resolved the allegation of partisanship against the background that a Major General from a section of the country similarly retired by former President Goodluck Jonathan was reinstated by the same military just a few months before adopting the same approach against 38 officers, many of whom are from another section of the country. That may just be a coincidence but it is unhelpful in a plural society with delicate fault-lines such as ours.

For instance, according to the letter given to the officers concerned, the reason for their premature retirement was given as being in pursuance of the provisions of Section 09.02c (4) of the Armed Forces of Nigeria Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers 2012 (Revised) which prescribed compulsory retirement on “discipline grounds i.e. serious offences”.

However, the procedures for establishing what constitutes a serious offence within the armed forces, according to the rules, begin with reporting such alleged offence, arraigning the officer(s) concerned before a court of competent jurisdiction, and upon conviction (if found guilty), sending the report to the Army Council for review and confirmation as the case may be. In the case of the 38 officers, none of these procedures was followed before their retirement was announced in a most cynical manner that tarnished the reputation of many. Worse still, some of the officers were not queried or confronted with any allegations of misconduct levelled against them. In fact, one of the affected officers was on a national assignment outside the country when he read about his retirement in the media

While we understand that some of them have sent an appeal letter to the president for a review of their case, we believe that the handling of the retirement of the 38 officers remains an important matter that the authorities cannot afford to ignore. An army that can violate its own rules will not respect the rights of ordinary citizens.