Nigeria, Dec. 17 -- Mr President, sir, I hope this open letter will not be misconstrued, as it happened about six years ago, precisely in January 2020, when I wrote a memo to former President Muhammadu Buhari, urging him to disengage service chiefs who had overstayed their tenures and whose continued stay was eroding morale within the armed forces.

In that earlier intervention, I argued - correctly, as events later proved - that retaining service chiefs beyond their statutory tenures violated military regulations, blocked career progression, and coincided with a worsening security situation. The service chiefs then were General Gabriel Olonisakin (Chief of Defence Staff), Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai (Army), Vice Admiral Ibok Ete-Iba...