Retired military officers will protest at the Ministry of Defence on Wednesday over the non-payment of consequential pension adjustments. The adjustment follows salary increases approved for serving military personnel.
One of the retirees’ leaders, retired Col. Innocent Azubike, disclosed this in an interview on Monday. He said the protest would focus on what the retirees consider their constitutional pension rights. Azubike said President Bola Tinubu approved a salary increase for military personnel in November 2025. He said the increase should also have led to higher pensions for retired personnel. However, he lamented that the adjustment had yet to take effect.
Retirees demand pension adjustment
Azubike said the retirees would protest at the Defence Ministry to demand the implementation of the outstanding adjustment. He said, “We have a protest on Wednesday at the Ministry of Defence to demand our constitutional pension rights.” According to him, the 2025 salary increase came with a consequential adjustment for retired military personnel. He said the pension component had not been implemented.
He said, “In November last year, the President approved a new pay increase for the military, and it came with a consequential adjustment for retirees and pensioners.”
Azubike said the situation became more worrying after another salary increase was announced for military personnel in August 2026. The new increase is expected to take effect in September. He alleged that authorities had calculated the funds required for the latest salary increase. However, he said they excluded the corresponding adjustment for pensioners. The retirees, he explained, are not opposed to the salary increase for serving personnel. Their demand is for pensioners to receive the adjustment linked to the higher salaries.
Ex-soldiers warn of pension gap
Azubike warned that the failure to adjust existing pensions could create a wide gap between retired officers of the same rank. He said the disparity could affect officers who retired at different times. According to him, officers retiring under the new salary structure could receive much higher pensions than those who retired earlier.
For example, a recently retired captain could receive N500,000 monthly. An older captain of the same rank could remain on a N250,000 pension. Azubike said the disparity could affect military retirees across different ranks. He also warned that it could create major differences among officers with similar service records.
“The implication is that when they raise the salary of serving personnel, those who will be retiring from the new salary scale, their pension will be far higher than their contemporaries of the same rank and equal number of years of service who had earlier retired,” he said.
He said the retirees were demanding the adjustment to prevent such disparities from growing.
“So, in demand of that consequential adjustment for pension, we are coming for the protest at the Ministry of Defence,” he said.
The planned protest is part of the retirees’ efforts to secure the pension adjustment linked to the salary increases for serving military personnel. When contacted, the spokesperson for the Minister of Defence, Leah Katung-Babatunde, declined to comment.
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