The Advocates of Social Justice for All (ASJA), on Saturday, hailed the decision of the Nigerian military authorities to compulsorily retire senior officers including, Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels and a Major, over alleged involvement in the Defence contract scam.

Nigeria Army

The ASJA, a non-governmental organisation, in a statement by its president, Torkuma Asogo, praised the determination of the present leadership of the Nigerian Armed Forces for its commitment to transparency and desire to sanitise the military which according to him had taken a downward slide to the abyss of corruption.

According to ASJA, the officers who were discharged for offences ranging from their roles in the 2015 general election, which was believed to be partisan, to involvement in Defence contract scams, would serve as deterrent to other intending perpetrators, thereby bringing back sanity to the Nigerian Army.

The organisation has also commended the bravery and honesty of the panel headed by Major General Adeniyi Oyebade, the General Officer Commanding 1 Division Nigerian Army, which had 62 officers and over 100 soldiers, as well as 62 civilians, appear before the panel.

Asogo, further condemned in totality the meddlesomeness of senior security chiefs in Nigeria into party affairs who he said has advertently polluted the security architecture with bad eggs.

He said it was regrettable for such officers especially those established to be involved in partisan politics to be left to continue serving in the force, recommending that the military authorities take cue from the Department of State Services by pulling such bad eggs out completely.

The statement read: “It is unfortunate that the Nigerian Military allowed these officers to stay on and perfected their succession plans, unlike the Department of State Services that acted swiftly based on public opinion to weed the polluted eggs out, we still believe that the most appropriate thing to do is to commence legal procedure against them in a court of law.”

The group has further demanded that the affected officers should within the period in view return their salaries and all entitlements received within the period back to the treasury.

The group stated that the senior military officers had in the course of their participation forfeited their right to salary from the Federal Government and thus any monies received in the course of active politicking by the officers should be considered an act of fraud and financial violation.

It even threatened that perchance the affected military officers fail to comply to their demands, it would be forced to take legal action, including petitioning the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Meanwhile the group has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to engineer such non selective, professional and strategic reforms to eschew the possibility of double edge characters hiding in the service to give the entire country a bad name through their actions and in-actions.