With the reinstatement and promotion of former DSS spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, on the directive of President Bola Tinubu, expectations are high that the Commander-in-Chief will extend similar justice to the 38 senior Army officers whose careers were unjustly truncated in 2016. Wale Igbintade writes

For the people of Cross River State, the reinstatement and promotion of their daughter and former Spokesperson of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mrs. Marilyn Ogar, to the service on the directive of President Bola Tinubu, is cheering news.

Ogar was in 2015 compulsorily retired from service following allegations of professional misconduct against her by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Many believe that she was unjustly targeted because of the professional manner she discharged his duty during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, which members of the Buhari government were not comfortable with.

Reacting to her reinstatement, the President of the Cross River State Indigenes Development Association (CRIDA), Sankara Dickson Unung, in a statement, praised President Tinubu’s actions, stating that he has demonstrated a powerful commitment to justice, fairness, and reward for merit.

“Mrs. Ogar served the nation with integrity, courage, and professionalism, and her reinstatement is a triumph of truth and faith,” Unung said.

CRIDA expressed gratitude to the Director-General of the DSS, Mr. Adeola Ajayi, for facilitating Ogar’s reinstatement and congratulated her on her steadfast faith and resilience.

“We stand solidly behind President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. We see in his leadership a new dawn of justice, merit, and inclusion for all Nigerians.” Unung affirmed.

Similarly, some of the 38 senior officers of the Nigerian Army whose careers were truncated by the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Tukur Buratai (rtd), in 2016 have also been urging President Tinubu to extend similar justice to them.

They believe that if the president could order the reinstatement of Ogar, as Commander-In-Chief, he can equally mandate the Army authorities to reabsorb them into the force.

Since the president assumed office in 2023, some of the officers have been appealing to him, the Minister of Defence, the Army Council, and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), to mandate the military authorities to comply with court rulings ordering their reinstatement.

The officers were forced out of service without recourse to due process, fair hearing and rules of disengagement in the Nigerian military.

Most of the affected officers, who are still young and have a lot to offer Nigeria, were neither queried nor indicted by any panel nor charged before any court-martial. They were flushed out for reasons that smacked of high-level disregard for law and witch-hunting by the authorities of the army.

The 38 officers subsequently petitioned the then-President Buhari in line with the military’s rules to seek redress. But even after petitioning the former president, their fates still hang in the balance.

Having lost confidence in the ability of the military authorities to give them justice, several of the officers approached the National Industrial Court (NIC) to clear their names and rebuild their careers. As of the last count, the Army had lost all the cases, as it could not provide any shred of evidence to substantiate the false accusations against the officers.

But despite the various courts’ judgments, which were all in favour of the officers, the Nigerian Army and former President Buhari refused to reinstate the soldiers, who are some of the country’s brightest in internal and external security operations.

One of the officers, Ojebo Ochankpa, died in 2017 while waiting for justice, leaving a widow and three children.

A security expert, Labaran Saleh, regretted that the stories of the personnel “remain a cautionary tale for the country.”

The expert noted that none of them faced any formal charge or a court-martial panel before their dismissal. He argued that one of the reasons why there is no motivation in the armed forces is the way some officers are randomly selected for victimisation and forced out of service.

Saleh said the Armed Forces Act prescribes steps to be taken in punishing offences, but doesn’t empower the Army Council to arbitrarily punish or retire officers. He warned that if the 38 officers do not receive justice, “the direct and proximate result is the destruction of the morale of those still in service, with the resulting impact on efficiency and commitment. The impact on the effectiveness, cohesion, and dedication of the Army is best imagined.”

“Why will the Nigerian Army not obey court orders? Are they above the law?” Saleh queried.

On July 27, 2023, one of the affected officers, Lt. Col. Abdulfatai Mohammed, submitted a letter to President Tinubu’s office, urging the president to prevail on the army to obey the court orders that declared his retirement illegal. Mohammed said he wrote the letter based on the “avowed commitment to justice” the president indicated in his “inauguration speech.”

His letter revealed a harrowing tale of woes, pains, hardship, difficulties, and injustices he and his colleagues had experienced. It displayed, particularly, the insensitivity and indifference of the Nigerian Army to their plight.

Mohammed is one of several officers who went to the NIC to clear his name. Others who obtained judgments ordering their reinstatement include Generals Ijioma and Saad, Colonels Nwankwo, Hassan, Suleiman, Arigbe, Dazang and AS Mohammed.

Military analysts have argued that the case of the 38 officers is a litmus test for this administration’s avowed commitment to the rule of law.

According to them, Tinubu should insist that the military authorities obey the rule of law by ensuring that the Nigerian Army complies with the valid and subsisting court orders.

They noted that the Army has a history of revisiting wrongful retirements and correcting them by reinstating the affected officers.

They cited the case of Major General Ahmadu Mohammed, who was reinstated in January 2016 after being compulsorily retired.

Gen. Mohammed was the General Officer Commanding 7 Division in 2014 when his troops mutinied and fired at his vehicle.

The soldiers accused him of dereliction of duty and sending them to the battlefield with minimal logistics support, thereby leading to many deaths. Most of those soldiers were court-martialled and sentenced to death. Similarly, Amnesty International accused General Mohammed of ordering the deaths of many Boko Haram prisoners at the Maimalari Barracks and indicted him in their report forwarded to the federal government.

However, in January 2016, the Nigerian Army recalled and reinstated him. In a press statement, the Nigerian Army’s spokesman at that time, Brig Gen SK Usman, said: “Although it is not an aberration for the international human rights body to raise such an observation, however, it did not take into cognisance the circumstances leading to his illegal retirement and the legal procedure that was followed in his reinstatement. The compulsory and premature retirement of Major General Mohammed did not follow due process and was rather arbitrary. The senior officer was never charged, tried, let alone found guilty of any offence that justified his premature retirement.

“The action was therefore a clear violation of extant rules, regulations, as well as Terms and Conditions of Service of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. This obvious violation prompted the senior officer to seek redress using the appropriate legal means. Consequently, the realisation of these omissions called for a review of the case by the Army Council and his subsequent reinstatement into the service.”

Saleh noted that Mohammed’s case set a precedent that should be applied in the case of Army 38.

A retired senior officer, who pleaded anonymity, said: “For me, it feels like a case of cheating. You see, these young men have had their careers stolen from them. No one should ever be made to feel that way; it leaves a sour taste, and that is unfair.”

The senior officer added that a letter was recently written by renowned human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), on the matter, yet nothing has been done.

With the Army exhausting its appeal on the judgments in favour of the officers, stakeholders are appealing to President Tinubu, the AGF, Fagbemi (SAN), and the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, to compel the Army to comply with the decisions in the interest of justice and fairness. (THISDAY, excluding headline)