General sues Army chief, FG, council over retirement

Chris Agbambu, Abuja - 27.03.2008

ALL may not be well within the Nigerian Army as a retired Major General has dragged the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Luka Yusuf, the Army Council and the Federal Government to court over his compulsory retirement from service.

The General, who for some times has been having a running battle with the Army hierarchy for his refusal to turn in his voluntary retirement, was finally served a letter last week by the Army Secretary that his services were no longer required.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that the General, not satisfied with the way his matter was handled by his compulsory retirement, immediately headed for the court to restrain the Army authorities from stopping him from performing his duties.

It was reliably gathered that the General, who is a former Director of Military Intelligence before being deployed to the Defence Headquarters as a director, was not happy with the manner in which the Army authorities pushed him out.

The General’s trouble started when the can of worm on arms deal to the militants in the Niger Delta blew open.

According to the military sources, some officers at the Central Armoury had sold large quantities of arms and ammunition to the militants.

This led the Army boss to set up a court martial to try some senior officers including two Colonels, Majors and some Warrant Officers.

Irked by the fact that the General was the Director of Military of Intelligence then and could not discover these illegal transactions in arms, he was retired.

However, in spite of the retirement notice, the General continued to come to work at Defence Headquarters.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that the matter came to the climax when the Army Council, headed by the Minister of Defence, Yayale Ahmed, advised that the General should put in letter of his voluntary retirement by the end of February 2008, which the officer refused to do.