Legal luminary and lawyer to 38 Nigerian Army officers, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to reinstate the officers who were prematurely retired eight years ago without any cogent reason by the former administration.
Falana also urged Tinubu to take judicial notice of the fact that the then military administration under former President Muhammadu Buhari refused to comply with the order of the National Industrial Court, NIC, and the resolutions of the National Assembly, directing their reinstatement.
He stated this on Wednesday during an interview with journalists in Lagos.
The Senior Advocate also cited injustice and lack of fair hearing in the case of the 38 officers, insisting that due process was not followed in their matter. He is therefore seeking their reinstatement on the grounds that they did not commit any offence.
Falana disclosed that the 38 senior officers were forced to retire by the Nigerian Army on June 9, 2016, saying the unjust retirement affected nine major-generals, 11 brigadier- generals, seven colonels and 11 lieutenant colonels.
Incidentally, the then spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier-General SK Usman, claimed that the 38 officers were compulsorily retired over what he described as “disciplinary grounds and serious offences” without citing any specific offence or misdemeanor.
According to the then military authorities, the “serious offences,” include partisanship during the 2015 general election, involvement in arms procurement fraud and jeopardising national security.
The then Minister of Defence, Brigadier-General Mansur Dan-Alli (rtd) and the former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai (rtd) corroborated Usman’s statement, claiming falsely that due process and fair hearing were granted to all the officers who were purportedly found guilty by a competent legal procedure.
But Falana debunked the claims, saying the 38 officers were retired without any cogent reason and urged President Tinubu to correct the impunity since he is an apostle of the rule of law.
He added that the Nigerian Army had acted with impunity on the case of the officers and refused to obey the order of the NIC and the resolutions of the National Assembly, directing their reinstatement up till today.
Falana, said, “As the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, I wish to inform President Tinubu that what happened to the 38 army officers under the previous administration is incredible and unfortunate. I am also using this medium to inform you that the infamous action is patently illegal and unjustified.
“The Nigerian Army cannot and should not be allowed to treat the valid and subsisting order of the National Industrial Court and the National Assembly resolution with levity.
“Mr President, there is the need for you to intervene because if you fail to do so, the premature retirement of these officers will send a wrong signal to serving military officers that it does not pay to offer selfless service to Nigeria.
“We have also written a detailed letter to the president through the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), seeking justice and their reinstatement in line with the National Industrial Court and the National Assembly’s resolutions. We sincerely believe and are confident that AGF Fagbemi will do the needful and advise the president accordingly.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the National Industrial Court had directed the reinstatement of the affected officers who had gone to court to challenge the act of injustice.
“But the then military authorities and the present one had continued to defy the court’s order. Several of the officers who felt that the army breached its extant rules and regulations in carrying out the retirement also took their complaints to the court to seek redress and clear their names, and the court ruled in their favour.
“The development was after their appeal to former President Buhari, seeking his intervention and reinstatement but there was no response from the presidency or the Nigerian Army up till date.”
It is instructive to note that seven officers who got judgments against the Nigerian Army are Maj. Gen. Ijioma, Cols Hassan and Suleiman as well as Lt. Cols Thomas Arigbe, A.S. Muhammed, Dazang and Mohammed.
It is also important to note that two other officers also obtained the National Assembly’s resolutions, ordering their reinstatement.
Some of the affected officers who are still in their 40s are optimistic that President Tinubu would carefully look into their cases and reinstate them in the interest of justice to continue to offer their military service to the country.
Further development in the matter:
On June 28, 2022, Colonel Hassan’s solicitors submitted a letter on his behalf to the office of the then Minister of Defence, Major-General Bashir Magashi (rtd), urging him to prevail on the Nigerian Army to obey the court orders that declared the retirement of their client illegal.
The solicitors reminded Magashi that on January 25, 2022, they had forwarded to his office, the judgment of the National Industrial Court that set aside the compulsory retirement of Hassan.
The letter also noted that Hassan had been subjected to extreme hardship and emotional and psychological trauma for not less than six years and still counting “in disregard of a subsisting and valid judgment of the NIC, affirmed by the Court of Appeal ordering our client’s reinstatement and payment of his salaries and allowances.”
In 2018, the National Industrial Court in a suit filed by Hassan, ruled in his favour where he sought N1billion as damages to void his compulsory retirement. The court vindicated the colonel and nullified his untimely retirement.
The trial judge, Justice Sanusi Kado, had ruled that the Nigerian Army failed to convince the court about the disciplinary grounds for the compulsory retirement of Hassan.
The army authorities, including the Nigerian Army Council, Chief of Army Staff and the Armed Forces Council, decided to appeal against the decision of the National Industrial Court.
But in December 2021, the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal in a lead judgment delivered by Justice Stephen Adah upheld the lower court’s verdict in favour of Hassan, saying the case of the appellants lacked merit.
The appellate court also noted that “it was in that respect that the court now held that the compulsory retirement of the claimant was declared null and void; letter of compulsory retirement also set aside.
The appellate court ordered the reinstatement of Hassan, saying a letter to that effect should be issued, reinstating him into the Nigerian Army with all rights and privileges.
But some analysts have argued that if the Generals cannot be reinstated because age and years of service have caught up with them, the colonels and majors who are much younger in age and years of service, still have a lot of contributions to make in the army.
To validate the claims that the officers were innocent of the allegations against them, it was reported that many of them are were even in Nigeria when they were compulsorily retired without fair hearing.
For instance, Lt. Col Thomas Arigbe was a Directing Staff on a two-year Exchange Programme with the Ghana Armed Forces at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College where an SMS was sent to him about his premature retirement, while Col. MA Suleiman, a national merit award winner for the safe rescue of several foreign hostages, was in Chad as military attache where his experience in fighting the insurgents was being utilised when he was also retired.
This is also the case with Hassan who led troops in recapturing Bulabulin and Damboa from Boko Haram in August 2014.
