Army Officer Writes Tinubu, Seeks Intervention over Compulsory Retirement

Wale Igbintade

One of the 38 army officers arbitrarily sacked in 2016, Lieutenant Colonel Abdulfatai Mohammed (rtd), has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intervene following the refusal of the Nigerian Army to obey the court injunction ordering his reinstatement.
Mohammed and 37 other senior officers were forced to retire by the army in June 2016. The mass dismissal affected nine major generals, 11 brigadier generals, seven colonels, and 11 lieutenant colonels.

However, the National Industrial Court (NIC) had ordered the reinstatement of Mohammed and others.
But despite the court order, the Nigerian Army and former President Muhammadu Buhari refused to ensure justice by reinstating the soldiers, who are some of the country’s brightest in internal and external security operations.

One of the officers, Ojebo Ochankpa, died in 2017 while awaiting justice. Their statutory appeal for redress to the then President Buhari within 30 days of their sacking, and other letters subsequently, were neither acknowledged nor replied to.
But Mohammed in his letter to President Tinubu, urged to prevail on the army to obey the court orders that declared his retirement illegal.
In the letter, which was also copied to the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, the aggrieved officer said he wrote the letter based on the “avowed commitment to justice” the president indicated in his “inauguration speech” on May 29, 2023, when he assumed office.

Mohammed described his compulsory retirement as a “malicious and wrongful” action that was followed up with “reputational damage actions in the media.”
THISDAY gathered that the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor (rtd), attempted to revisit the issue in 2021.
In a memo to the former Minister of Defence, which was acknowledged on 7 July 2021, Irabor sought the endorsement of the minister for “voluntary retirement of the 38 senior officers with effect from 1 January 2018.” However, the appeal was not approved.

Mohammed said he is now appealing to the Commander-in-chief, Tinubu, current Chief of Defence Staff and Army chief to order his “(1) immediate reinstatement into the Nigerian Army as ordered by the court with effect from 9 June 2016. (2) Full restoration to the current rank and seniority of my course mates (47 RC) and (3) Payment of all my salaries and emoluments from 9 June 2016 till date,” he wrote.

“I am confident in your leadership and steadfastness for justice/rule of law and optimistic that you will grant me full restoration to put my career back on course as I never deserved the ill-treatment of over 7 years of compulsory retirement that was meted to me,” Mohammed added
In 2016, the Nigerian army cited “service exigencies, corruption in arms procurement, and partisanship” as the “serious offences” that warranted the compulsory retirement of the 38 officers.

However, in his letter to President Tinubu, Mohammed said he was never found guilty of corruption in arms procurement or partisanship in elections.
“I was never involved in any of the issues highlighted and/or any wrongdoing whatsoever. My compulsory retirement was without due process as it was a clear departure from the disciplinary process and laid down procedures of the Armed Forces of Nigeria as well as natural justice,” he said.
The Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers whose paragraph 09.02c (4) was relied upon to remove the officers, originates from the Armed Forces Act.

The section cited by the army provides that an officer may be compulsorily retired “on disciplinary grounds, that is, serious offence(s)” without defining what constitutes “serious offences”.
But the principal law – the Armed Forces Act – establishes all actions that constitute offences in the military. The Act prescribes steps to be taken in punishing offenders, and a review shows no section empowers the Army Council to arbitrarily punish or compulsorily retire officers for any offence. The Army Council, in Section 11(a-f) of the Act, has no power to retire any officer on disciplinary grounds without compliance with the steps prescribed by law.

Mohammed and most of the affected officers were neither queried nor indicted by any panel, but got flushed out for reasons that smack of high-level arbitrariness and witch-hunting by authorities of the army, a reason the victimised officers petitioned the authorities in keeping with the military’s rules to seek redress.

Mohammed had filed a suit at the National Industrial Court to reverse his “unlawful and wrongful compulsory retirement from the Nigerian Army without any disciplinary process or procedure.”

On January 14, 2020, the National Industrial Court declared “the retirement” of Mohammed as “wrongful, unconstitutional, illegal, null and void; and ordered his immediate reinstatement with all the rights and privileges.

The Nigerian Army is however yet to comply with this judgement to date.

In a letter to the Chief of Army Staff, Mohammed noted that “despite the favourable judgment of the court in 2020 to redress the injustices meted to me, the pattern of abuse that I have been subjected to since 2016 was continued with the deliberate refusal to comply with the court judgment which was duly served the Nigerian Army.”