Col. Nasiru Salami (rtd), a veteran of the civil war, criticizes what he calls the inadequate treatment of retirees by military authorities and states that he cannot permit his children to enlist in the Nigerian Army.
In honor of the 2025 Armed Forces’ Remembrance Day, Col. Salami made this declaration on Wednesday on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.
In a moving account, the 76-year-old veteran of the civil war detailed his military career, from his enlistment in the Nigerian Army in October 1967 to his deployment to the battlefield for the Biafra conflict shortly after completing six weeks of training.
Salami, who is currently the Secretary of the Lagos Chapter of the Nigerian Legion, claims that he spent 11 months fighting in the civil war that raged from 1967 to 1970.
The septuagenarian described how the battle caused him to suffer a severe loss of his right foot, which had to be amputated. He claimed to have returned to the battlefield to carry on fighting.
He went on to say that he would not support any of his kids enlisting in the Nigerian Army.
“For now, I will never recommend any of my children to join the Nigerian Army. I am their father, and they are seeing me now that my life is not to their expectation. They would want me to be higher than this, full of joy and other things that would make them happy. How would I now encourage them to join the army?”
“I have two graduates now, and I said to them: ‘Never you think of going to join the army. If you want to join, maybe the Navy or the Air Force. I’ve not been there, but I’ve seen them and I’ve been hearing about them because they are treated better,’” he said.
According to the war veteran, the Nigerian government has yet to pay him and other civil war survivors their war bonuses more than 50 years after the conflict began, and the Nigerian Legion in Lagos has more than 24,000.
In addition, he expressed dissatisfaction over his unpaid pension and other benefits received after retirement.
“We are asking for war bonuses, those of us who fought the war. I retired in December 1983, and they promised us heaven and earth that they would give us our war bonuses, but up till now, we have not seen it,” he said, appealing to the government to do the needful and improve the welfare of him and his colleagues.
