Military to retire soldiers with ‘divided loyalty
The military high command of Nigeria has ordered that all soldiers with divided loyalty, disgruntled personnel, or soldiers with unmotivated personnel in the army, navy, and air forces should be retired.
Daily Trust reported that the directive was sent in a memo signed by Gen. Lucky Irabor (Chairman of Defence Staff), to Chief of Defence Administration at Defence Headquarters, Rear Admiral Muhammed Nagenu.
According to military officials, soldiers and officers who are disgruntled or unmotivated no longer show a high level and undivided loyalty. They also lack the mental presence and ability to think clearly required for military operations.
It partly read;
“In view of the above, deployments of such personnel do not benefit the Services and are in fact counter-productive.
“Consequently, on the identification of disgruntled or unmotivated personnel, Services are advised to take steps to compulsorily discharge or retire such personnel in line with extant laws.”
It is however unclear whether the disgruntled officers were being profiled for involvement in mutiny or any other unwholesome acts.
Director, Defence Information, Maj. Gen. Jimmy Akpor, in a telephone interview with the news outlet, said the memo was to ensure discipline within the armed forces. Akpor who did not disclose the number of officers that would be affected maintained that it was not targeted at anybody.
He said;
“Be assured that the Nigerian Military is a self-regulating organization that holds tenaciously to the best practices of administration. The so-called memo is saying the obvious as even civil organizations would not maintain disgruntled elements.”