Nigeria, April 7 -- The Nigerian Army on Sunday denied a PREMIUM TIMES story about a policy suspending the rights of soldiers and officers to retire voluntarily from service.

But an internal army circular obtained from senior military sources corroborated our story and punctured attempts by army spokespersons to mislead Nigerians about the controversial policy.

The army tagged the PREMIUM TIMES report as "fake news" shortly after it was published on Sunday night, even as it failed to explain its own side of the matter.

In a Twitter post that appeared at 11:58 p.m., the Nigerian Army handle displayed a defaced screengrab of our story in composite with another unrelated article published by a separate news website and screamed: "Be Aware...