The appointment of the new Service Chiefs by President Bola Tinubu has once again triggered a familiar storm of retirements in the Armed Forces,” representing a generational reset that clears the old guard to make way for the next.
On Friday, President Tinubu relieved the following officers of their duties: Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa; Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Olufemi Oluyede; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla; and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar.
New Appointments and the Hierarchy Purge
The President announced the following successors:
- General Olufemi Oluyede (39 RC) replaces General Christopher Musa as the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).
- Major-General W. Shaibu (41 RC) replaces Mr. Oluyede as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
- Air Vice Marshall S.K Aneke (40 RC) replaces Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar as the new Chief of Air Staff (CAS).
- Rear Admiral I. Abbas (40 RC) replaces Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla as the new Chief of Naval Staff (CNS).
Major-General E.A.P Undiendeye (39 RC), the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), “retains his position.”
The appointment of the new COAS, Major-General W. Shaibu, who is from the 41 Regular Course (RC), commissioned in 1994, immediately dictates a quiet but sweeping purge one dictated not by politics, but by the uncompromising military hierarchy.
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The rule of military hierarchy dictates that all officers senior to the new Service Chiefs in course seniority must retire.
- The new COAS is from the 41 RC, meaning “all officers senior to the 41 RC are going.”
- The CDS and CDI are from 39 RC, while the CNS and CAS are members of 40 RC.
- In the Nigerian Army alone, the purge is expected to affect about “57 generals from the Army who belong to 39 and 40 RC.”
- Additionally, “64 National Guard officers who were absorbed into the Army” and commissioned alongside the 40 RC will also have to retire, as the new COAS is junior to them.
In total, the Army is expected to lose over 120 senior officers at a go.
With the Navy and Air Force projected to lose “about 40 officers combined,” the total number of senior officers exiting the system is estimated to be “about 160 across the services.”
This pattern of retirement is “not unprecedented,” but it also addresses a deeper issue of stagnation.
After about five years as major generals, many officers are “just marking time.”
A senior officer remarked that most officers at that stage “are not adding value anymore.”
He added: “They’ve become administrators of privilege not men of purpose.” This clinging to power blocks promotion lines for junior officers, leading to discontent.
The new appointments have thus brought both relief and resentment.
While it “opens long-blocked promotion lines” for younger officers, it is an abrupt end to a long career after three decades in uniform for those exiting.
The change signifies that the 41 Regular Course will now dominate the Army’s leadership, marking a generational shift from officers trained in the late 1980s and early 1990s to those commissioned in the mid-1990s.
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