Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika
By Senator Iroegbu in Abuja
The Nigerian Army has disclosed plans towards making its retired officers relevant in the scheme of things in the military by engaging their services and expertise after retirement
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika stated this yesterday in Abuja while inaugurating the Army Transformation and Innovation Centre built through direct labour by the army engineers.
Ihejirika said with th President's approval, highly professional and intelligent officers could be made to serve in the centre even after attaining their retirement age rather than giving them out as the army had always done.
According to him, the centre was an institution where the army hopes to keep a lot of their think tank, adding that every army and every nation must device a means of keeping think tank.
He said: "The army headquarters has commenced work towards examining this, so that we do not waste vital resources in personnel on the basis of regular retirement as experiences are not easy to acquire.
"The successful completion of the project was a huge step towards the realisation of our vision which is to 'transform the army into a force better and able to meet contemporary challenges’’.
The COAS noted that the idea to build the centre was to ensure the steady progress of the on-going transformation process in the army.
"This project is also in line with the Federal Government agenda thus the army is expected to come up with a force projection that will support the president national transformation timelines as stipulated in the transformation agenda and you are all aware security is a major issue of that agenda", he explained.
"The transformation and innovation centre will seek therefore to keep pace with global military advancement in addressing contemporary challenge, ‘’ he added.
Ihejirika further explained that the centre was detached from the army headquarters so that officers at the centre would dispassionately look at what the army was doing.
According to him, the centre was to ask questions and debate freely whether the army tactics and strategy are correct and make presentations.