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It also said “due process” was followed in the retirement gale as the affected officers had spent the maximum 35 years in service with most of them having been commissioned on March 1, 1972.
The Presidency, in a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, also said the redeployment of officers was meant to fill the vacancies created by the retirements.
Adeniyi’s statement, made available to State House correspondents, read: “The retired officers are those who were due for retirement having spent the stipulated 35 years in service. In fact, most of the officers were commissioned on March 1, 1972.
“The decision on the retirement of affected Army officers was taken at a duly convened Army Council meeting in June this year.
“No other motives should be ascribed to this purely routine movement of personnel in the Armed Forces.”
The Director of Information Defence Headquarters Col. M. D. Yusuf also denied reports from the foreign media that the officers were retired because of a coup scare.
He said the Generals, including Majors-Generals and Brigadiers-Generals, were all due for retirement by the end of July 2007 and there was nothing strange about retirement.
If indeed there was a coup scare, he said, those involved would have been arrested and put in prison but as far as he was concerned nobody had been arrested.
He also stated that contrary to a report in the local media that 40 Generals were retired, only a few postings were made which did not in anyway mean those occupying the position before had been retired.
Yusuf, who refused to give the names of those retired, insisted it was a personal thing and those affected have been notified. He said the postings and retirement of military officers followed the conditions of service of officers.
Some of the Generals speculated to have been retired are Major-General Adewuyi, formerly GOC 82 Division and CTOP at DHQ; Major-General R. Ihekire, and Commandant of TRADOC and former Force Commander of African Union Force in Darfur.
Also the Nigerian Air Force was also said to have retired four Air Vice Marshals (AVMs) including the Air Officer Commanding the Tactical Air Command, Air Vice Marshal Nelson Dilli, and the Chief of Policy and Plans at the Defence Headquarters, Air Vice Marshal Saliu Atawodi.
The former GOCs are Majors-General Ihejirika of 81 Division, Lagos; Major-General Atawodi of 82 Division, Enugu; Major-General L. Jokotola of 1 Division, Kaduna; Major-General Joseph Oshanupin of 3 Division, Jos and Major-General Saleh of 2 Division, Ibadan.
The new appointees are Major-General A. T. Ibrahim, GOC 82 Division, Enugu; Major-General Dambazau, GOC 2 Division, Ibadan; Major-General Moses Obi, GOC 1 Division, Kaduna; Major-General Akinyemi is GOC 3 Division, Jos; Major-General M. C. Yerima, Military Secretary Army, and Major-General J. B. Samuel, Commandant of the Nigerian Army Artillery Corps and School.
Others are: Major-General Adekegba Ovo, formerly Director of Military Intelligence, now Chief of Training and Operations at Defence Headquarters; Brigadier-General O. Role, formerly the Deputy Commandant of the National Defence College, now the Commander Army Headquarters Garrison, Abuja.
For the Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Femi Gbadebo, formerly the Air Officer Commanding Training Command, Kaduna has been appointed the new AOC Tactical Command while Air Vice Marshal C. Obierika, formerly the Air Officer in charge of Inspections at NAF Headquarters, is the new AOC Training Command.
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