The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, has refuted reports making the rounds in some online publications to the effect that the federal government has dropped two of the country’s service chiefs.

According to Dan-Ali, the reports claim that he had sent letters to  the  Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Olonisakin and the Chief of the Naval staff, Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas directing them to hand over their offices on or before Friday, 16 December.

However, in a statement issued on Monday by Tukur Gusau, the Public Relations Officer to the Defence Minister, Dan-Alli advised media practitioners to always balance their stories in order to avoid mischief.

He stressed that “there was no such communication between the office of the Honourable Minister of Defence and the service chiefs directing any one of them to hand over his office and proceed on retirement.”

“The appointment and replacement of service chiefs is a prerogative responsibility of the office of the President and Commander in Chief,” the statement added.”

Similarly, the Defence Headquarters, through its Director of Information, Rabe Abubakar, refuted the claims that some Service Chiefs have been retired and replaced.

Abubakar described the rumours as baseless and unfounded, adding that the service chiefs are still discharging their official responsibilities.

“It is disturbing and embarrassing the cooked up stories going round in the social media,” he said.

“There is no iota of truth in the misleading information. We ask the public to ignore the report as baseless and unfounded,” he added.

The media reports had claimed that Olonisakin and Ibas were retiring having attained the official years of retirement from the military.