PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has approved a retirement package that includes $20,000 for foreign medical treatment, bulletproof SUVs, and cooks, among other benefits, for service chiefs and generals.
The package is contained in the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service (HTACOS) signed by President Bola Tinubu.
The approval was announced on December 16, 2024 on social media by the Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, Dada Olusegun.
In line with the package, the vehicles will be replaced every four years and maintained by the military. They will also receive a Peugeot 508, or a similar backup vehicle.
Upon retirement, the generals will enjoy additional luxurious benefits, including domestic aides and residential guards. Retired lieutenant generals and their equivalents will also enjoy international and local medical treatment worth up to $20,000 annually as reported by Punch.
Besides, each retiring service chief will get five domestic aides, including two cooks, two stewards, and a civilian gardener, plus an aide-de-camp or security officer.
The HTCOS also includes the retention of all military uniforms and accoutrements to be worn for appropriate ceremonies.
Retiring generals will also have one aide-de-camp or security officer, one special assistant, who will be lieutenant, captain or equivalent or one personal assistant, who would be a warrant officer or equivalent.
They will each have a special assistant, three service drivers, and a service orderly, with escorts provided as needed.
They would also be allowed to retain their personal firearms, although these would be retrieved by the relevant service upon their demise.
The federal government also approved benefits for major generals and brigadier generals, including a Toyota Land Cruiser or equivalent vehicle, $15,000 for annual medical treatment, domestic staff, and residential guards.
Meanwhile, one-star officers will receive $10,000 annually for medical care, a Toyota Camry or equivalent vehicle, and have similar domestic and security arrangements.
Colonels and their equivalents would receive a Toyota Corolla or its equivalent, and free medical care within Nigeria.
Benefits for serving chief of defence staff and service chiefs are not specified, but it’s most likely they will receive significantly more.
However, this package has been criticised by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD).
According to Punch, the NMA president, Bala Audu, said retirement benefits given to government officials should be invested in Nigeria.
He said they should receive their medical treatment in Nigeria.
The MDCAN president, Muhammad Muhammad, called for a major overhaul of Nigeria’s healthcare system to better meet the needs of its citizens.
He said that the nation’s health system was not doing enough to provide quality care for those who needed it and that a transformation was necessary to improve health outcomes and ensure that everyone has access to the care they deserve.
According to him, the decision to provide foreign treatment for retired officers is shocking, as it implies that the local health sector may not be equipped to handle their medical needs.
Reacting, the NARD president, Tope Osundara, emphasised that medical tourism was a bane to the nation’s health sector and called for the need to address it immediately.
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Upon retirement, the generals will enjoy additional luxurious benefits, including domestic aides and residential guards. Retired lieutenant generals and their equivalents will also enjoy international and local medical treatment worth up to $20,000 annually as reported by Punch.
Why quoting this amount of money in dollar denomination in Nigeria?. Can Americans quote theirs in Naira? Who’s doing us these things.
Nice for the military. They deserve it
So that they will not think of overthrowing the government till he run 8 years.
He has no integrity to say this because when he was there, he didn’t put those health facilities there to cater for the citizens he is talking about and he also took medical treatment from abroad otherwise he would have been forgotten today…
So if Tinubu too did not provide medical facilities that many African leaders and international figures can be proud of for their medical issues, he will face the music after he leaves government.
You are welcome
This vividly shows that Nigerian government will never take lessons from the previous word pandemic of corona virus (COVID-19) when the whole world gone lockdown and domestic health facilities automatically became a necessary option. Nigerian government should as a matter of fact invest more on our healthcare systems rather than taking abroad huge resources that can turn around all our health facilities to world standard.