Despite persistent insecurity challenges across Nigeria, findings have revealed the huge numbers of senior military officers, have been forced into early retirement under the administrations of former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The mass disengagements, which cut across the Army, Navy, and Air Force between 2015 and 2023, were carried out in line with long-standing military tradition.
As reported by Punch, by convention, senior officers who are of the same course or senior to newly appointed service chiefs are required to retire once new leadership emerges.
No fewer than 500 senior military officers across the Army, Navy, and Air Force have been forced into early retirement between 2015 and 2023 following changes in the country’s service chiefs under the administrations of former President, Muhammadu Buhari, and his successor, Bola Tinubu.
Naija News reports that the mass disengagements, which affected officers of the rank of Major-General, Brigadier-General, Rear Admiral, and Air Vice Marshal, stemmed from the long-standing tradition of retiring those senior to or of the same course as newly appointed service chiefs.
According to the military, the practice is intended to maintain discipline, hierarchy, and operational efficiency.
Data collated from media reports indicate that over 500 officers have quit the service in the past eight years. However, military insiders put the figure at about 900 or more, a number that Punch noted it could not independently verify, as authorities were unavailable for confirmation.
Buhari’s Waves Of Retirement
The first wave came in July 2015 when Buhari appointed new service chiefs, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai (Army), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar (Air Force), and Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas (Navy).
The exercise saw over 100 senior Army officers, mostly Major Generals and Brigadier Generals, retire, while the Navy lost more than 20 senior officers, including Commodores and at least one Rear Admiral.
Another major purge was recorded in 2021, when Buhari replaced all the service chiefs and appointed Air Marshal Isiaka Amao (Air Force), the late Lt.-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru (Army) and Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo (Navy).
That round forced about 123 generals out of the Army, over 50 senior Air Force officers, and 50 naval officers.
Following Attahiru’s death in May 2021, the appointment of Gen. Farouk Yahaya triggered another retirement of more than 20 generals from Courses 35 and 36, who were senior to him.
Tinubu Continues Tradition
Under President Tinubu, the pattern continued. On June 19, 2023, barely two weeks after assuming office, he appointed Lt.-Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla as new service chiefs.
This move led to the compulsory retirement of 51 Army generals, 49 Air Force officers, and 17 naval officers.
Last Friday, Tinubu again executed a shake-up, replacing General Christopher Musa with Gen. Olufemi Oluyede as Chief of Defence Staff, while Maj.-Gen. Waidi Shaibu became Chief of Army Staff, Air Vice Marshal Sunday Aneke took over as Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral Idi Abbas assumed office as Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Emmanuel Undiendeye, retained his position.
The latest appointments are expected to trigger another round of retirements, with about 60 top officers projected to disengage if tradition is maintained.
Reacting to the development, retired General Ishola Williams criticised the practice of arbitrary dismissals.
He said the repeated cycle of forced retirements and sackings mirrored “the culture of the military regime.
He said, “Once the government replaces the service chiefs, it means that the set of the former service chiefs will have to retire because they cannot serve under their juniors.
“And this has been happening all the time. And I don’t know why we cannot change this. It is very bad. They are copying the military regime. If you hold a job at that level, somebody should tell you that in three months, you are going to leave. But to just make an announcement and tell the person, ‘you are leaving now, is abnormal.”
Naija News reports that Williams suggested a system of appointment where the chief of defence staff would be the principal staff officer to the President, to whom other service chiefs would report, while other commanders would report to the service chiefs.
He argued that this would institute a natural order of succession within the army.
“When you are doing posting, you post the next senior officer. So, the chief of army staff and everybody know that this is supposed to be the next chief of army staff. Or you say, it’s going to be one of the senior commanders, who are also senior officers. But what they are doing now doesn’t speak well of the Armed Forces at all,” he added.
On his part, a retired Gen Aliyu Momoh commended the President’s decision to reshuffle the service chiefs, urging him to do more by removing the “cabals” in the military.
Momoh said, “I must commend the President; he has the right to hire and fire, but you have to go deeper. You will wonder why I’m commending the President. He has done a lot in the economy, fighting insecurity, and all of that. You see, that makes a country a great nation.
“But if you want to survive, if the country must survive, the President should go further to remove the cabals, the cartels that are in the military. It’s not those of them wearing uniforms. The cabals and the cartels controlling these things are not the forces. If you give these boys enough to fight, they will fight.
“So, it’s not just waking up and removing everybody, and thousands of people leave. No. You know that without security, there is no development. So, the President should go further to do more, to pull out all the cabals, whether politicians, ex-generals, and the rest, wherever.
“If he doesn’t do it, give Tinubu eight years, 10 years, he will still be doing the same thing we have been doing for the past, and there will be no solution.”
The ex-general described the situation in the rank and file of the army as confusing, stating that the President could change the narrative and find a solution within five to six months.
“Look, there is confusion everywhere. People wore uniforms, they were doing their best, and now you removed them and you want to re-engage them, for what? Let’s change the narratives. And this solution can be found within six, seven, or eight months, not one year, if the right button is pressed.
“But we are busy politicking, finding out where this new chief comes from, where this one is from. That is what we are doing as a nation. There is no coherence, no coordination. But of course, as I told you, the main problem is that there are cabals. Not only in the economy,” the ex-army officer stated.
Also speaking, Brigadier General Adewinbi (retd.) said the recurring wave of retirements each time new service chiefs are appointed was an established military tradition that could not easily be changed.
“There is nothing we can do about it. You can’t tell the President who to appoint; that is why he is the Commander-in-Chief. Many of us have been victims of this tradition,” he lamented.
Adewinbi suggested that the government should explore ways to continue benefiting from the experience of retired generals.
He stated, “What I think could be done is to ensure we utilise some of these generals. We can enlist them in our reserves so that their expertise and experience can still be put to good use.”
Retired Group Captain Sadique Shehu, who once served on the Committee for the Reform of the Armed Forces under Buhari, described the gale of military retirements as “unsustainable” and “structurally flawed.”
Shehu, a former spokesman for the Nigerian Air Force, puts the figure of retired generals under Buhari at over 960 in 2022.
“Over 500 in the last eight years! They are more than that. I was in the Committee for the Reform of the Armed Forces under Buhari and personally tasked to count how many generals we had. As of 2022, the Armed Forces had had about 960 generals for a total strength of 235,000 personnel. That’s too much.
“The United States, with 1.3 million personnel, has about 900 generals. So, imagine — almost the same number of generals for a force that is barely a fifth of their size. If you divide our troops by the number of generals, a general would hardly have five soldiers under him,” he added.
Shehu attributed the bloated number of generals and the frequent mass retirements to poor manpower planning, political interference, and weak legislative oversight.
“It’s not a good practice, but the problem starts with producing too many generals. If we had fewer generals, even if the President skipped one or two courses to appoint a service chief, only a few officers would be affected. But now, when you pick a chief two courses down, you end up with 40, 50, or even 100 officers who must leave.
“You cannot leave the military to run itself. There’s too much political interference. If the Chief of Army Staff says he wants to promote 50 major-generals, the minister brings five from his village, and another minister brings five from his own. Nobody asks where these people will fit in,” he lamented.
He stressed that unless Nigeria drastically reduces the number of generals it produces, the cycle of forced retirements each time a new service chief is appointed would continue.
She further stated, “The first solution is to tighten the number of generals we are producing. If we do that, even when the President exercises his power to appoint a service chief from a lower course, fewer officers will be affected.”
Shehu also urged the National Assembly to play a stronger oversight role by legislating clear conditions for the appointment and tenure of service chiefs.
“The National Assembly can pass a law defining how a President picks service chiefs, for instance, limiting tenure to two years or restricting choices to the topmost generals. They can modify the process without taking away presidential powers,” he explained.
He noted that many generals currently in service lack defined responsibilities due to rank inflation, describing the trend as “wasteful and counterproductive.”
He said, “Some generals don’t even have real assignments now. Promotions are done without considering the economy or actual needs. That must change if we want professional and efficient armed forces.”
However, Major General Lasisi Abidoye (retd.) said the pyramid structure of the military naturally filtered out many officers through resignation, retirement, or death before reaching the senior cadre.
The retired officer explained that the Nigerian Army’s promotion process and rank structure made it unlikely for such a large number of Generals to be disengaged at once.
He said, “During my time, I was RC 28, and when I got to the rank of Major General, only eight of us from my course made it. So, where will the other Generals suddenly come from?”
He noted that routine retirement remains a healthy and necessary process in the Armed Forces to ensure operational efficiency and career progression.
Abidoye stated, “That routine retirement is good for the military. When a Service Chief stays too long, all his juniors become stagnated and are forced to retire before him.
“Even the chief himself loses creativity after three years. No Service Chief should stay longer than two to three years; anything beyond that becomes counterproductive, like what we saw under former Lt. Gen. Buratai.”
Also, a former Director at the Defence Intelligence Agency, Major-General PJO Bojie (retd.), described the looming mass retirement of Generals following the appointment of new Service Chiefs as a “routine” exercise in the military.
Bojie said it was standard practice in the military for certain cadres of officers to be retired when new Service Chiefs took over.
However, Bojie insisted that the development was not unusual, saying it was “in line with military tradition.”
“The situation demands it, and it’s normal and routine,” Bojie added, dismissing concerns about the large number of Generals being retired.
