The House of Representatives has moved to cease the Nigerian Army’s coverage of routinely merging years spent in service as troopers with years served as commissioned officers, warning that the apply is forcing skilled personnel out of service prematurely and creating avoidable manpower shortages.
The transfer adopted the consideration of a movement on discover moved by Adamawa lawmaker, Zakaria Nyampa on the necessity to evaluate and discontinue the automated merger of service years for personnel commissioned via the Short Service Combatant Commission, Direct Short Service Commission and Direct Regular Commission.
Presenting the movement, Nyampa famous that the Nigerian Army presently operates a coverage that routinely merges years spent in service as troopers with years served as officers after commissioning.
He defined that the coverage additionally counts durations spent in college training or awaiting commissioning as a part of an officer’s complete reckonable service.
According to him, “The practice is inconsistent with the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service 2017 (Revised), which defines an officer’s military service as “a period of unbroken service in the Armed Forces of Nigeria from the date of commission to the date of retirement.”
The lawmaker additional argued that the coverage violates the doctrine of professional expectation and ideas of contractual equity contained in Sections 7 and 91 of the Labour Act.
Nyampa advised the House that past authorized issues, “The policy has wider implications for military operations and personnel management.”
He continued, “The automatic merger policy is discriminatory, undermines morale and cohesion within the officer corps, accelerates the retirement of experienced personnel, creates manpower gaps, increases recruitment costs, erodes institutional memory, and deviates from international best practices,” he added.
Adopting the movement, the House urged the Nigerian Army Council to discontinue the automated merger of service years for officers commissioned via SSCC, DSSC and DRC and make such mergers non-obligatory, to be utilized solely upon the written request of affected officers for pension computation functions.
Lawmakers additionally referred to as on the Armed Forces Council to “Harmonise service reckonability across the Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force to ensure fairness, cohesion and uniformity in military service regulations.”
The House additional urged the Chief of Army Staff to “Undertake sensitisation programmes and issue transitional guidelines to eliminate ambiguity and prevent misinterpretation of any revised policy.”
Additionally, members referred to as on the Nigerian Army Council to perform “Legal and administrative reviews aimed at preventing potential litigation arising from what they described as the retroactive application of the policy.”
Consequently, the House mandated its Committee on Army to conduct complete oversight on the matter, significantly concerning the rights, welfare and profession development of affected officers, and report again inside 4 weeks.
The controversy centres on how service years are calculated for personnel who started their navy careers as troopers, rankings or airmen earlier than subsequently incomes commissions as officers via programmes such because the SSCC, DSSC or DRC.
Under the present association, years spent within the ranks earlier than commissioning are added to years served as officers when figuring out complete size of service.
Critics argue that the apply shortens the energetic profession span of commissioned officers as a result of they attain statutory service limits sooner than counterparts who entered immediately as officers.
Supporters of reform contend that whereas pre-commission service could legitimately depend for pension and gratuity calculations, utilizing the identical interval to decide retirement timelines for commissioned officers contradicts present service laws and locations affected officers at a profession drawback.
The subject has generated rising concern inside navy circles, with affected personnel warning that the coverage could lead on to the lack of skilled officers at a time when the armed forces proceed to grapple with a number of safety challenges throughout the nation.