Following the appointment of Maj.-Gen. T.Y Buratai as the new Chief of Army Staff, there is the likelihood that the Nigerian Army would soon witness a gale of retirements because there is a difference of five years in hierarchy between the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, and the incumbent.
According to investigations by Punch, apart from a few members of the Course 25, who are still in service, there are also other officers from Courses 26, 27, 28 and 29, who may likely be affected by Buratai’s emergence as Army Chief.
No fewer than 30 Major Generals, who are either senior in hierarchy or who belonged to the same course as Buratai, may have to retire from the service, the newspaper’s investigations revealed.
The long existing tradition in the Army is that a senior officer cannot remain in the service to take instructions from his subordinate.
However, a source confided in the newspaper that not all the Major Generals in that hierarchy would go as some of them who are junior to the Chief of Defence Staff, Maj.Gen. Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin, who is of Course 26, could be moved to the Defence Headquarters and other tri-service institutions of the Armed Forces.