Jonathan looks into the retirement of army generals, cites security challenges for action

by Adeola Balogun

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The recent retirement of army generals has attracted the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan and he has decided to wade into the matter.

The exercise has affected 17 Generals, who are already set to leave by December, and other officers across the Armed Forces including Brigadier Generals, Air Commodores and Navy Commodores.

According to reports, the president has decided to intervene, not to stop the retirements since they are governed by the Harmonized Terms and Conditions of Service of the Armed Forces, but to ensure that the nation is not denied the expertise of such trained and tested officers.

President Jonathan is said to have reasoned that following the outbreak of current security challenges especially terrorism, kidnapping, sophisticated hijacking of ships at sea, illegal bunkering and bombing attacks, retiring these officers and throwing them to the unemployment market with their expertise in the art of security will be a disservice to the nation.

According to sources, the presidency instituted a committee to look into the matter of retiring such highly trained and productive officers and it was discovered that it costs a minimum of N30million to train an officer to the rank of a Brigadier General and above.

It was therefore decided that a situation where such colossal amount of funds was used to train an officer and such officer was discarded with at his prime when he will still be useful to the nation is a wasteful exercise.

Comments (3)

  1. he younger ones should be promoted to meet the need if any
    Trainig in both civil and military is a requirement not necessarily to combat terrorism, retiring offiers due for retirement shouldn’t be ued to score a cheap political goal.
    They should go most of them are above 70yrs of age, then promote the younger ones to fill the gap.
    You could used those retired in the office NSO to boost security plans and strategies

  2. Nigeria do not have enough doctors yet we retire them at 60 when most of them are still useful. Experience makes a doctor.

  3. At times I wonder if our so called leaders have some brains. There are a lot of people jobless out there that can be given opportunity to be trained and then serve but instead, GEJ wants to call them back. Nigerian leaders are so selfish. We have a lot of graduates with sharp minds that are more capable than the old bags, languishing in poverty and yet yhey cant b called.

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