The immediate past Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Lucky Irabor Friday pulled out of service at a colourful military parade in Abuja.
The Pulling-Out-Parade is a traditional military ceremony to mark retirement officers from the service.
Irabor and other service chiefs were retired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on June 19, 2023.
Speaking at the event, Irabor said he was honoured to be pulled out of service after 37 years of faultless military career.
According to him, he left the country’s armed forces bigger, stronger and more capable of delivering its constitutional mandate and national security functions, stressing that the service has strong unity and bond that could not be broken.
“In 2021, the nation’s security situation was admittedly in a state of dynamic flux. Efforts made by the Federal Government of Nigeria using the armed forces in collaboration with the police, other security agencies and critical stakeholders were in different stages of gestation.
“We were encouraged to pursue these measures in addition to other initiatives to reinvigorate the national security architecture to deliver critical national security functions.
“I make bold to say that I’m leaving the armed forces of Nigeria today, bigger, stronger and more capable to deliver on its constitutional mandate and national security functions,” he said.
Irabor also called on politicians to desist from playing politics with the military, stressing that the friendship and unity within the armed forces could not be found anywhere else.
He said the armed forces are made up of people from the 774 local government areas of the country who are well trained and indoctrinated from the regimentation.
“The military is a family for those who may not know, and I have answered so many questions on we being given an injection. What is that injection? There is no injection. The injection is training and discipline.
“They also said we operate like a cult; the process alone there is nothing wrong if I say we are in a cult, but it is a good cult.
“In the training establishment when I was a cadet, we spend three years, but two years later, it became a five-year programme.
“When it was three years, the admission was every six months, and when it became five year, the admission became every year.
“For you to finish a three-year programme means that you will have five sets of your senior and five sets of your junior.
“The bonding that comes with it, you can’t find it in any other place, and that is why you think is a cult.
“The values and traditions are transmitted from one generation to the other, and when you get to the field, you see yourself as brothers,” he said.
