Retired Military Chiefs Tell Tinubu: Resource Existing Army Divisions Before Expanding to 12

Retired Military Chiefs Tell Tinubu

 

OpenLife News reports that retired senior military officers have urged President Bola Tinubu to fully fund and equip the Nigerian Army’s current eight divisions before proceeding with plans to expand the force structure to twelve, warning that gaps in personnel, equipment and an ambitious timeline could jeopardise the initiative.

The caution came from former Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor; former Director of Air Force Public Relations, Group Captain Sadiq Shehu (retd); and former Joint Task Force commander, Major General Anthony Atolagbe (retd), in separate television interviews monitored in Abuja.

The officers acknowledged the strategic intent behind the President’s approval to establish four new divisions in Makurdi, Ilorin, Jalingo and Benin City.

The move will take the Army from eight to twelve divisions and is aimed at improving territorial coverage, especially in the North-Central and South-South.Irabor described the expansion as “a right step in the right direction.” But he insisted that priority must be given to the existing formations.

“Increasing from 8 Divisions to 12 Divisions has a lot of implications. First, the existing 8 Divisions must be properly brought up to scale in terms of personnel, equipment, logistics, and so on and so forth,” he said.Shehu was more critical.

He argued that the health of the current eight divisions of the Nigerian Army had not been properly established before the expansion decision was taken.

“What I had expected to be done, and I hope has been done, is to look at the existing eight divisions. How well resourced are they? Again, it is open knowledge that the military and even the ordinary citizens will be saying that the military is overstretched,” he said.

Citing the Army’s Table of Organisation and Equipment, TOE, Shehu explained the benchmarks for a functional unit. According to him, a battalion should have between 6,000 and 9,000 officers and men, and requires roughly 750 rifles, dozens of vehicles and radios, plus communications and engineering equipment. Military doctrine, he added, recommends that units operate at 90 to 100 percent of TOE strength.

“Unless you have this combination of organisation… and also equipment that is balanced, your battalion, or your brigade, or your division is not going to function properly,” he said.The retired Air Force officer also questioned the implementation timeline. Under the plan, the 5th, 9th and 10th divisions are to be established by September 2026, with the 83rd division to follow by December.

“With due respect, very good plan, but the timeline, again, is not realistic. It is very easy by presidential fiat to say, I have established a division, but to be honest, to have a ready division, in fact, even a ready brigade or a battalion within three months or five months is barely impossible,” Shehu said.

He raised further concerns about manpower. The Federal Government has announced plans to recruit 28,000 additional personnel. But Shehu noted that a single division typically requires 15,000 to 20,000 officers and men. Pulling troops from existing under-strength units, he warned, would only “dilute” them further.

On funding, Shehu cited a disclosure in the National Assembly attributed to Senator Ali Ndume, that the Army received less than five percent of its budgetary allocation for equipment this year.

“A unit without equipment is… you need the people. You need specialists, engineers, signals officers. All these are necessary to make a battalion a battalion,” he said.He also spoke on troop welfare, noting that while soldiers’ pay had risen from N40,000 to N100,000, the amount was still inadequate given current economic realities.

“Certainly, the soldiers have been underpaid… What will N100,000 achieve?” he asked.Shehu warned against treating the expansion as a political gesture.
“Let’s not make it as if it is a politically kind of decision, that every area needs to have its division. That will not help the military. That will not help the country.”Atolagbe, however, offered a more optimistic assessment.

He described the expansion as “a rejig at its best” and “audacious,” and one of the most far-reaching reorganisations of the Army in recent years. He said the new divisions were necessary to close dangerous gaps in Nigeria’s security architecture.

“If you take the map of Nigeria based on what we used to have, you will notice that between the division that is in Sokoto and the one that is in Ilorin, there is a very big gap in terms of distance and space,” he said.On the timeline, Atolagbe disagreed with Shehu.

He argued that it was feasible because some proposed headquarters, such as Ilorin, already have barracks and battalions on ground. He explained that a “task organisation” process would reallocate battalions and bring in new recruits.

“These are progressive steps that will be taken,” he said, noting that recruit training takes about six months while officer training at NDA takes up to four years.

The debate among the retired generals reflects a broader concern within the security community: how to balance the political imperative of expanding military presence with the operational realities of funding, equipment, and trained personnel.

As the Tinubu administration pushes ahead with the restructuring, the retired chiefs agree on one point — without adequate resourcing, the new divisions risk existing only on paper.