Chief of Defence Staff and service chiefs, who were retired by President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, June 19, 2023, are to get bulletproof Sport Utility Vehicles, personal aides, guards and other perks of office, including generous allowance for medical treatment abroad as retirement benefits.

The affected senior military officers are the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff, Faruk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff, Awwal Gambo; and Chief of Air Staff, Isiaka Amao.

The Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers of the Armed Forces of Nigeria 2017 (revised), which was exclusively obtained by Saturday PUNCH and marked as “Restricted”, listed the benefits of the retired Generals upon leaving the respective services.

Section 11.8 of the HTACOS 2017, a revised version of the HTACOS 2012, listed the benefits of a retiring CDS and service chiefs to include one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the service and to be replaced every four years; Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle; and five domestic aides made up of two service cooks, two stewards and a civilian gardener.

Each of them is also entitled to an Aide-de-Camp/security officer; special assistant of a lieutenant/captain or equivalent, or personal assistant of the rank of warrant officer or equivalent; and nine standard guards of nine soldiers.

The immediate past CDS and service chiefs are also entitled to three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts to be provided by the appropriate military units/formations as the need arises; and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.

They are also to retain all military uniforms and accoutrements to be worn for appropriate ceremonies, as well as personal firearms. However, such firearms shall be retrieved by the relevant services upon the death of the beneficiaries.

Section 11.19 of the HTACOS 2017 also listed the retirement benefits of a Lieutenant General for the Nigerian Army, Vice Admiral for the Navy and Air Marshal for the Air Force to include two Peugeot 508 cars, or one Toyota Land Cruiser, two cooks, two stewards, four residential guards, one service orderly, two service drivers, free medical treatment in the country and abroad to the tune of $20,000 yearly.

Meanwhile, many Major Generals and equivalence in the Navy and Air Force are expected to apply for voluntary retirement latest by Monday following the appointment of a new CDS and service chiefs by the President.

In the HTACOS, however, the retirement benefits for a Major General in the Army, Rear Admiral in the Navy and Air Vice Marshal in Air Force, who are two-star officers, include one Peugeot 508, a cook, a steward, two residential guards, one service orderly, one service driver, free medicals in Nigeria and abroad to the tune of $15,000 per year.

Their one-star officers who are Brigadier Generals, Commodore and Air Commodore upon retirement are entitled to one Peugeot 408, a service driver, two residential guards, one service orderly and free medicals locally and abroad to the tune of $10,000 each.

For Colonels, Captains and Group Captains in the Army, Navy and Air Force, respectively, each of them is expected to go with a Peugeot 301 or another car of the same value and free medical cover in the country.

The harmonised conditions of service, however, provided that for Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, Colonels and their equivalents in the Navy and the Air Force, all the benefits could be monetised for the retiring officers.

In comparison, the 2012 version of the HTACOS made provisions for one security car to be maintained by the respective service and replaced every four years; retention of all military uniforms and accoutrements to be worn for appropriate ceremonies, as well as personal firearms, which shall be retrieved by the relevant services upon the death of the beneficiaries; three domestic civilian aides (cook, gardener and steward), or cash in lieu; Aide-de-Camp/security officer; six standard guards; one service driver; and one service orderly for retiring Generals, CDS and service chiefs in Section 09.17.

Saturday PUNCH gathered that the HTACOS was reviewed in 2022 in accordance with the five-year review period, but it was not signed due to rumblings that the senior generals were taking good care of themselves at the expense of the rank and file.

It was learnt that to become operative, the HTACOS would be signed by the CDS with the permission of the President as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

The current HTACOS in use specifies that the CDS and service chiefs must be four-star Generals and can hold the positions for a continuous period of two years and that the Commander-in-Chief can extend such appointments for another period of two years from the date of the expiration of the initial two-year period.

However, Section 11.09 leaves the tenure of the CDS and service chiefs open and at the discretion of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, stating, “The foregoing notwithstanding, the President, C-in-C reserves the prerogative to extend the tenure of a CDS/service chief irrespective of his age or length of service.”

Former President Muhammadu Buhari relied on this provision to retain the services of Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Ibok Ekwe Ibas; and Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar, who were appointed in 2015 but were not replaced until January 2021 even though there were calls for them to be sacked based on the rising insecurity in the country.

 ‘Too many generals’

A former spokesman for the Nigerian Air Force, Group Captain Sadeeq Shehu (retd.), said the country had too many generals, which he noted had led to difficulties in appointing service chiefs in the military.

Shehu stated this on Friday in an interview with Arise TV, which was monitored by one of our correspondents.

He said, “The retirement is going to include the Generals in the Army, Air Force and the Navy. What is important is not the effect that this retirement will have on security, because we have enough Generals. If these people go, they will be replaced.

“However, it is important to note that it is not normal for the military anywhere in the world to retire about 100 Generals, and by my own estimate, we have close to 133 Major Generals in the Army, Rear Admirals in the Navy and Air Vice Marshals in the Air Force, that are leaving. We also have to remember that this is not the first time. When the last set of service chiefs retired in 2022, we had another batch of about 100 who left.

“The issue here is when you look at the money that is spent on training these people, whether it is foreign courses or the ones here, the experience we are losing and the money we are wasting on these people and then telling them to go is not good for the national economy.

“On the individual level, I must put the premise that our President and Commander-in-Chief, according to the constitutional requirement in Section 217, has the right to appoint service chiefs and the constitution does not tie his hands that in appointing service chiefs, he must pick either the most senior or the middle senior or the most junior. It is completely within his right to do that.

“But President Bola Tinubu came and met about 350 Major Generals across the services, so to be honest with you, his work was not even easy in picking his service chiefs. I think there is a problem that started long ago. We should not be having 350 Major Generals for the President to pick from. The services themselves or the superintendents in the Ministry of Defence approved that number.”

Shehu added, “When you join the military, they will tell you that the military is a pyramid. Now to maintain that pyramid, the lower bottom of the military should be higher than the next higher level. You are supposed to have a large base of Second Lieutenants who came out of the Nigerian Defence Academy in the Navy, Air Force and Army and as they progress into their second rank, which is full Lieutenant, it is almost automatic unless someone dies.

“But from Lieutenant rank, when you are moving to captain that is when the process of filtering starts coming in such a way that you have like 80 per cent, and from Captain to Major, you have like 70 per cent. Towards the end, at the top which is the General, the ideal is that you have like two per cent and a maximum of three or five per cent. But what do we have in Nigeria?

“According to the research I made, there are some courses that since they went out of the NDA, about 44 per cent of them became Major Generals. This is not a good way to go about it. So, I think the failure has to do with a well-coordinated and modern military personnel management system.

“So, I think the problem was not made by the President himself, but the military as an institution with the strict supervision of the Ministry of Defence should be able to follow this filtering process so that only the best become Generals in line with global practices. Unfortunately, that filter has not been working.”

The former NAF spokesman stated, “Those of us that studied these things as far back as 2012 noticed this tendency of promoting too many Generals. There are too many Generals. I know the times are not like when I joined the military, but I remember in 1984 when I joined the military in Kaduna, you could hardly see a Brigadier around. But what do we have now? We have too many Generals.

“We need to listen to our elders. General Ishola Williams, as far back as 2020, gave us this warning that we are having too many Generals and too little field troops. In the long run, it is the country that loses.”

Punch