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General Lagbaja: Rise, Deities Of Vengeance [OPINION]

Published

11 months ago

November 19, 2024

By Suyi Ayodele

“Generally, any of my children or wives can have access to my grave site to pray and or seek spiritual assistance.” This is the last paragraph of the Will of the late grandfather of human rights activism in Nigeria, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The Will was dated December 19, 2008.

The late lawyer, a devout Muslim in his lifetime, believed that the dead can commune with the living. Hence, in his Will, he granted permission for his children and wives to seek spiritual assistance at his grave side. Modern-day religionists would call him names. But the man called Gani would not bulge. The paragraph preceding the quoted one has a curse embedded in it. Hear Fawehinmi again:

“I plead with all my children and wives not to resort to any form of court litigation over my Will. They should resolve amicably any dispute or controversy with themselves…. I have had enough of painful struggles and controversies in my lifetime, I should be allowed to rest in peace. If any child or wife breaches this passionate plea, he or she will reap my displeasure and wrath.”

Fawehinmi died on September 5, 2009, barely a year after he deposed to the Will. It has been over 15 years since the great man passed on. Nobody has heard about any rumble in his family over the Will. The people he left behind are aware of the efficacy of the curse the man imposed on any would-be ‘troubler of Israel’ in his family. They knew how fiery the man was when alive. They can then understand how terrible his “wrath” would be should anyone go against his last wish. That is a good example of a man who never forgot his tradition!

We are heavily metaphysical as Africans, and more importantly, as Yoruba. We have however, lost our sense of originality to Western culture. I am an advocate for cultural renaissance, any day. And my calling as a Christian remains unimpaired.

A senior pastor in my church once accused me of “venerating Ifa above Jesus.” He made the comment after reading one of my pieces on this page where I volunteered to be a diviner for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I responded by asking him to allow Jesus, the ‘Author and Finisher of our faith’, to be the ultimate judge. No man holds the keys to the City of David in his hands. A lot of intimidation takes place in the name of the Gospel. Yet, the ones who brought the new religion to us hold on to their culture, undiluted!

We have abandoned what our forebears handed over to us. If all we do as Africans in terms of worship is all for the Devil, what is the fate of those who left this planet before Christianity and Islam were introduced to us? My family progenitor, the famous Baba Alaajole, the inimitable Òbomolè Bo Ogun (The one who worships deities, worships amulets, and venerates charms), was an acclaimed traditional paediatrician (Aremo). Many children were saved by what he had in his medicine pots! Is he in heaven or hell now because he did not know anything about Jesus? Or would he be covered by the “period of Grace”? Phew!

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I watched the funeral rites for the late Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja, on the television last Friday. It was a colourful ceremony. The military razzmatazz was heavy. General Lagbaja deserved all the encomiums and military rites of passage accorded him. He died on November 5, 2024, at a very tender aga of 56. But he was buried like a nonagenarian. He should be happy where he is now. General Lagbaja’s funeral was a good one except that he was denied what would have made the event better, or the best for him. That is pitiful and sad!

A man is a product of his people, or his family. The late General Lagbaja was not an exception. He came from somewhere. He was a member of a family, a community and a society. His people in Ilobu town, Osun State, never believed and will never believe that the late military officer died a natural death. I don’t blame them. That is how we are wired as a people.

Age 56 is nothing among our people. A 56-year-old man is still a child. My older sister, Anti mi Idowu, called me her “kid brother” the other time. I smiled. I am closer to 60 than 50 but I am still a “kid brother” to her! Yes. It is true; a child is never old in the eyes of the parents. Anti mi Idowu, I was told, broke the rules in her Modern School to rush home to carry me hours after I arrived on this side of the planet. So, I remain her “kid brother” till Thy Kingdom come!

I also recall here that my father, Baba Daniel Falade, passed on at age 87 in January 1987. The news was broken to one of his great cousins, Yeye Ifábonmí Ipindogan, popularly known as Yeye Alaro (she was into tie and dye), was told, she reported: “this . The old woman, on hearing the news, said: “This child” eventually died of this emere (ogbanje) spirit that had afflicted him from birth! Yeye Alaro was right. Baba Falade was a child at 87 because the old woman’s first child, Baba Akinwumi, was almost the same age as Baba Falade! This is why Yeye Alaro believed that it was the Ogbanje spirit that ‘killed’ her cousin at 87!

If Ilobu people believe that General Lagbaja died too young at 56, they are right. If they hold the belief that Lagbaja’s death was not natural, nobody can fault them. That is why I believe that the Federal Government should have yielded to their demand to have the late General buried in Ilobu with all the traditional rites for a man suspected to have been cut short in life, performed!

It doesn’t matter anyone’s view, particularly, the ‘saint’ Christians and Muslims, who hold the belief that such practice is ‘fetish’. We must first get this right; every funeral ceremony is a rite, a ritual, if we all get the definitions of rite and ritual right. And, if the question is if I believe in traditional rites for a departed soul under the circumstances of the late General Lagbaja, my answer is an emphatic YES!

I was a freelance reporter with the defunct Sunday Diet Newspaper in 1997, when the late General Oladipo Diya and other top Yoruba Military officers were arrested by the expired Head of State, General Sani Abacha, for coup plotting. At our editorial meeting of December 22, 1997, conveyed by our Editor, Sheddy Ozoene, his deputy and head of our features desk, Ikechukwu Amaechi, was assigned to coordinate the magazine report of the arrests. I was assigned to cover General Diya while Yinka Oyebode, the current spokesman to Ekiti State governor, was assigned to cover General Tajudeen Olanrewaju.

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I arrived at Odogbolu very late in the night. I was fortunate to find a small drinking party at a joint. I joined the party despite their suspicion of me as a security agent. My head could manage a bottle or two then. I ordered a beer and sent three bottles of the brand they were managing to the table of a three ‘friendly’-looking party across. They looked at me and gestured thank you.

After a while, I moved to their table and explained my mission. I showed them.my identity card, a note on the letterhead of Diet Newspaper and my passport photograph. The life of a freelance journalist! Not enviable in any way! They believed me and helped me to secure accommodation in one dingy hotel, with a promise that one of them would come to take me round the town the following day.

The day broke and my friend showed up. We walked around the town. The first things I noticed were various pots of ritual items and palm fronds. I asked what happened just to be sure. My contact said they were rituals for the release of General Diya. Then I noticed four bigger ritual spots. What distinguished them was the presence of pèrègún shrubs. That must have been a big ritual based on my little knowledge of pèrègun and its uses. It is not a common element of your daily rituals!

My contact took me to the Alaye of Odogbolu. Kabiyesi was not willing to talk. But he, nevertheless, mentioned that Diya would come out alive. I was taken to the Anglican priest in town, then to one of the General’s classmates. We visited the General’s uncle, a blacksmith. He wore a melancholic posture. He told me nothing would happen to his nephew. He exuded confidence as he intoned that the kolanut will always be buried by the leaves (ewé ni ó ma si obì) and added that the gourd will break first before the water inside will spill (kèrègbè má fó kí omi iní è tó dànù). I understood him.

My contact finally took me to an old Baba’s house, where I saw what my people called èrù (fear). My contact told me in the English Language that the old man was behind all the rituals I saw earlier. I asked the old man if he believed in the efficacy of the rituals. He affirmed that. Then curiosity took over me. I pointed out that I saw pèrègún shrubs in town. The old man kept a straight face. I prodded further. Why pèrègún? The old man looked at me and asked if I knew what people used pèrègún for. I explained to him the little knowledge I had.

The old man said that the little I knew should guide me. Then he uttered the familiar words peculiar to pèrègún. He said: pèrègún will always outlive the deity (Pèrègún ló ma réhìn imalè)). He emphasised that General Diya would outlive all his traducers in the matter. The session closed. I thanked my contact and headed back to Lagos.

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Less than six months later, General Abacha expired on June 8, 1998. He was said to be doing the thing after eating an Adamic apple, when he answered ‘present sir’ before his maker! General Diya and others were released. The Odogbolu-born General passed on on March 26, 2023, in a way my people described as peaceful death (Ó fowó rorí kú). His people believed in the power of rituals. They performed rites before the various gods of the town. All the deities were given what they relish best. And General Diya survived the executioners’ bullets. How I wished they had allowed Ilobu to do the same for Lagbaja.

This is why the funeral of General Lagbaja without the input of his townsmen remains painful. God owns life. He alone determines when to take it. Nobody is contesting that. However, the Scripture also tells us that we should not be unmindful of the wiles of the devil because we wrestle against power and principalities, rulers of the darkness of this age and spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:11-12),

This is the belief Ilobu people have. That is why they requested that the late General Lagbaja be given to them to bury their own way. I don’t think that was too much of a request. The Federal Government and the Nigerian Army could still have had their colourful ceremony for the departed General in Ilobu as they did in Abuja.

A man belongs to his community. Lagbaja belonged to the Ilobu town. His placenta was buried in the town. They are his source; they know his origin. This is a case of the ancient divination, Ogbè Móhunfólóhun (Give unto a man what belongs to him). If indeed Lagbaja’s life was cut short by the wicked, his people had been denied the opportunity to call on the owners of the land to rise and avenge them. The sermon of ‘from-sand-we-come-and-unto-sand-we -return’ would not suffice here.

We need to have a reorientation about our culture, norms and world outlook. It is unfortunate that while those who brought Christianity to us never abandoned their own culture, we the converts threw away everything that is our heritage. The British brought the ancient throne from Edinburgh for the coronation of King Charles III. But in Ogbomosho of all ancient towns, we made the traditional ruler kneel before a pastor who placed his hand on the Oba’s head. Ogbomosho has in the last one year been moving from one needless crisis to the over the Imam of the town; a matter that should not concern the Oba! Unfortunately, nobody is asking what went wrong.

Take the case of Ikú Bàbá Yèyé, the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, for instance. Over two years after the passing of the foremost Yoruba traditional ruler, the throne has been empty! That is not just an embarrassment to the Oyo Alaafin people but the entire Yoruba Race and Black Africa. Why is the throne of Oranmiyan vacant? Why are the Oyo princes at one another’s throats? Why are we finding it difficult to do it the way it ought to be done so that it can be the way it should be?

Daily, we lose the last vestiges of the things our forebears left for us. Our women kneel completely to venerate their ‘daddies-in-the Lord but can hardly genuflect to greet their husbands. Pastors, Imams and other ‘spiritual godfathers’ keep brainwashing us and nobody is paying attention.

When I told some people that there are some altar calls, I would not respond to, they said I was not ‘broken’. How on earth would I allow any pastor to tell me to “use your two hands to hold your head and say, ‘my head, reject evil’”, and I would do so when I had witnessed that countless times at Baba Falade’s divination sessions?

What is the difference between a pastor asking me to touch the ground and touch my head and my late father asking his divination clients to touch the ground and touch their head and thank their destiny (Orí)?

Going by the tributes at General Lagbaja’s funeral, one can easily conclude that he was a great soldier, and a nice guy. I join my voice to thousands of others in wishing his family the fortitude to bear the loss.

But, more importantly to me, I wish Ilobu people home and in the Diaspora, divine vengeance on those they suspected were responsible for the demise of their kinsman. Even if cancer was the harbinger of that death, it must die. This should be its last act of heartlessness.

And for the departed soul, General Lagbaja, before you rest in peace, if indeed someone or a group of people were responsible for your ‘untimely’ departure, visit them in anger. When they walk in the day, let them be afraid. At night, let them hear footsteps. When they eat, may they not be satisfied and when they drink water, let their thirst not be assuaged. After that, Rest in Peace, Soldier Man!

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

6 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

8 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

12 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)