The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which recently affirmed the reinstatement of 455 retired police officers should serve as an opportunity for the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) to put a stop to the culture of not obeying court orders by the police and armed forces after unjustly terminating the services of their personnel, Davidson Iriekpen writes
The decision of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which last week affirmed the reinstatement of 455 retired police officers has sent shock waves across other security agencies that have been unjustifiably dismissing their personnel.
The impunity has almost become the norm in the Army, Navy, Air Force, police and the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).
In its decision, the court dismissed an appeal filed by the Police Service Commission (PSC) challenging the judgment of the National Industrial Court, which nullified the retirement of 455 senior police officers.
The appellate court, in appeal No. CA/ABJ/PRE/ROA/CV/1829MI/2025 between the Police Service Commission and ACP Chinedu Ambrose Emengaha and eight others, upheld the earlier decision of the lower court, which set aside what it described as the illegal and forceful retirement of the officers.
The National Industrial Court, in its judgment delivered on September 30, 2025, by Justice R.B. Haastrup, had ordered the immediate reinstatement of the affected officers, alongside the payment of their salaries and allowances.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, the PSC and the police leadership filed separate appeals before the Court of Appeal.
However, in its judgment, a three-member panel of the appellate court comprising Justices Okorowo, Banjoko and Okon Abang dismissed the commission’s appeal, thereby affirming the decision of the National Industrial Court in its entirety.
The ruling came weeks after the same court, on March 16, 2026, struck out a separate appeal filed by the Inspector-General of Police and the Force Secretary in respect of the same matter, describing it as frivolous.
The dispute arose following the decision of the Police Service Commission, in conjunction with the former Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to retire 455 senior officers on January 31, 2025.
The development had sparked controversy within the Nigeria Police Force, with critics alleging that the retirements were carried out without lawful justification. Among those affected were senior officers, including AIG Idowu Owohunwa, AIG Ben Igwe and DCP Simon Lough, among others.
The aggrieved officers subsequently approached the National Industrial Court in suit No. NICN/ABJ/28/2025, seeking redress over what they termed their unlawful retirement. In its ruling, the trial court granted all the reliefs sought by the officers and ordered their reinstatement, a decision that has now been affirmed by the appellate court.
Many analysts have likened the judgment to the one secured by seven of the 38 army officers retired unjustly by the Nigerian Army during the era of impunity that characterised the past administration and the refusal of the army authorities to comply with court rulings.
The 38 senior officers were forced to retire by the army on June 9, 2016. The unjust retirement affected nine major generals, 11 brigadier generals, seven colonels and 11 lieutenant colonels. The news of their retirement on June 9, 2016, sent shockwaves across the nation.
The then spokesman of the Nigerian Army then, Brig. Gen SK Usman had declared that the officers were compulsorily retired on “disciplinary grounds, serious offences.’’
The “serious offences,” according to the army authorities included partisanship during the general election of 2015, involvement in arms procurement fraud and jeopardising national security. The then Minister of Defence, Brig. Gen Mansur Dan-Alli (rtd.) and the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai (rtd.) corroborated Usman’s statement, claiming falsely that due process and fair hearing were granted to all the officers who were purportedly found guilty by a competent legal procedure.
However, it did not take long for the mischief and falsehoods to be exposed as Nigerians later realised that the 38 officers were not queried, charged, tried or found guilty of any offence, let alone appearing before any court-martial.
When it became evident that the army acted illegally, the National Industrial Court (NIC) ordered the reinstatement of the affected persons, who had gone to the court to challenge the act of injustice.
But the authorities have continued to defy the court’s order.
Many of the officers who felt the Army breached its extant rules and regulations in carrying out the retirements, took their grievances to the courts to clear their names, after they had appealed to the then President Muhammadu Buhari for his intervention, but no response came from the presidency or the army.
The officers who got judgments against the Army are Maj. Gen. Ijioma, Brig Gen Saad, Cols Nwankwo, Hassan and Suleiman as well as Lt. Cols Thomas Arigbe, A.S. Muhammed, Dazang and Mohammed.
One other officer obtained a resolution of the National Assembly ordering his reinstatement.
Some of the officers who are still in their 40s are hoping that the authorities would carefully look into their cases in the interest of justice to continue to offer their military service to the country.
On June 28, 2022, Col. Danladi Hassan’s solicitors submitted a letter on his behalf to the office of the then Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd.), urging him to prevail on the army to obey the court orders that declared the retirement of their client illegal. The solicitors reminded Magashi that on January 25, 2022, they had forwarded to his office the judgment of the National Industrial Court that set aside the compulsory retirement of Hassan.
The letter had also noted that Hassan had been subjected to extreme hardship, and emotional and psychological trauma for not less than six years and still counting “in disregard of a subsisting and valid judgment of the National Industrial Court, affirmed by the Court of Appeal ordering our client’s reinstatement and payment of his salaries and allowances.”
In 2018, the army first suffered a defeat at the Abuja National Industrial Court in a suit filed by Hassan seeking N1billion as damages to void his compulsory retirement. The court vindicated the colonel and nullified the untimely retirement by the army.
The trial judge, Sanusi Kado, had ruled that the Nigerian Army failed to convince the court about the disciplinary grounds for the compulsory retirement of Hassan. The army authorities, including the Nigerian Army Council, the Chief of Army Staff, and the Armed Forces Council, decided to appeal against the decision of the Industrial Court.
In December 2021, however, Justice Stephen Adah, reading the lead judgment of the three-member Appeal Court panel vindicated Hassan again by ruling that the appellants lacked merit in their suit.
The court also noted that “it was in that respect that the court now held that the compulsory retirement of the claimant was declared null and void; letter of compulsory retirement also set aside and he was ordered to be reinstated and a letter issued to that effect, reinstating him into the Nigerian Army with all rights and privileges”.
Several years later, the arbitrary manner they were sacked has remained a ghost haunting the force.
In delivering his judgment on February 5, 2020, in Col. M. A. Sulaiman v Nigerian Army and others, Justice Sanusi Kado corroborated the officers’ arguments, insisting that the “compulsory retirement of the claimant (Col MA Sulaiman), is hereby declared null and void.”
Other judgments followed a similar pattern with the judges denouncing the actions of the Nigerian Army against the officers and ordering their immediate reinstatement, promotion and payment of all their entitlements.
In February, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbami (SAN) directed the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mrs. Kemi Nanna-Nandap, to comply with a subsisting judgment of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) compelling the NIS to recall Daniel Makolo, an officer it unlawfully disengaged.
The AGF was responding to a letter from the NIS’ Comptroller-General requesting “legal guidance” on how to address the issue.
In his letter, now filed along with a fresh suit before the NICN, the NIS’ Comptroller-General was cautioned about the consequences of failing to obey a court’s judgment.
Lawyers to the army officers have severally written to the AGF for the army authorities to reinstate the officers in the interest of justice and fairness and in particular to rectify their service records as they have proved their innocence in court.
Illegal and arbitrary retirements are a recurring decimal in Nigeria’s security agencies.
The AGF has to intervene and ensure that the rule of law is maintained and not flagrantly disobeyed by the heads of security agencies. As the Chief Law Office of the country, the AGF has a sworn duty to ensure the rights of any Nigerian, be it civilian, police or army are not violated.
Now that the courts have ordered the reinstatement of the military and police officers, it is the duty of the Chief Law Officer to ensure that justice is served.
He should ensure that the judgment of the court is duly implemented to clear the names of those affected.
After all, Nigeria won’t be the first country to reinstate officers unjustly sacked. In a remarkable milestone for the Indian Army, Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit was recently cleared for promotion to the rank of Brigadier, becoming only the second officer in the force’s history to achieve the elevation without having commanded a unit at the colonel level.
This exceptional decision came after a prolonged 17-year ordeal that saw Colonel Purohit, an officer from the Military Intelligence Corps, navigate serious legal challenges, including his implication in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. He was acquitted by a special court in July 2025 due to insufficient evidence, paving the way for his reinstatement and career progression.
Colonel Purohit, who was commissioned into the Maratha Light Infantry in 1994 and later served in counter-terrorism operations in Jammu and Kashmir, had risen to Lieutenant Colonel before his arrest in November 2008. He spent nearly nine years in custody before being granted bail and was promoted to full Colonel in September 2025 following his acquittal.
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