From Molly Kilete and Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja

Apart from involvement in the controversial $2.1 billion arms deal allegedly supervised by former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), political partisanship, money laundering and corruption including purchase of choice houses abroad are among the transgressions that allegedly cost 38 officers their jobs in the Nigerian Army, Daily Sun investigation has revealed.
Daily Sun also gathered that 300 officers were initially penciled down for compulsory retirement. A source claimed that it was President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention that reduced the number to 38.
A top presidency source told Daily Sun that the affected officers ought to have been retired in August 2015.
The sacking, Daily Sun gathered, came to army authorities as a shock as the letter authorising their compulsory retirement from service emanated from the office of the Minister of Defence, Mr. Mansur Dan Alli.
Alli, a retired Brigadier-General, was said to have communicated the sacking to the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai, through a letter dated June 6, which catalogued the alleged offences of the officers.
The affected officers included Major-Generals F. O. Alli, Atewe, I. N. Ijoma, L. C. Ilo, TC Ude, Letam Wiwa, SD Aliyu, M.Y Ibrahim, LC Ilo and O. Ejemai.
Others were Brigadier-Generals D. M. Onoyeveta, A. S. O. Mormoni Bashir, A.S.H Sa’ad, A. I. Onibasa, D. Abdusalam, L.M. Bello, KA Essien, B. A. Fiboinumama and I. M. Lawson.
Also affected were Cols. I. O. Ahhachi, P. E. Ekpeyong, T. T. Minimah, O. U. Nwonkwo, and F. D. Kayode, Lt-Cols C. O. Amadi, K. O. Adimogha, T. E. Arigbe, O. A. Baba Ochankpa, D. B. Dazang, O. C. Egemole, Enemchukwu, A. Mohammed, A. S. Mohammed, G. C. Nyekwu, T. O. Oladintoye, C. K. Ukoha and Major A. T. Williams.
But some of the officers who spoke in confidence denied the allegations. They claimed they were neither invited nor made to face any board of inquiry (BoI), over the alleged fences.
They insisted that their sudden exit from service was a form of ethnic cleansing to weed out officers believed to have been close to the former administration.
The officers vowed to use all available legal means to fight their “untimely retirement from service.” They challenged the army authorities to produce evidence of their trial.
Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, however, dismissed the allegation of ethnic cleansing. He insisted that the military exhausted all the processes before arriving at the decision to embark on the retirement exercise.
Buratai, who spoke yesterday when he led a delegation of the army on a visit to the Minister of Communication Technology, Chief Adebayo Shittu in Abuja, said the army ensured that no innocent officer was affected in the exercise embarked upon to remove those “who in one way or the other jeopardized the fight against insurgency and other issues bordering on national security.”
Asked why the retirement was coming now, he retorted:  “Why not now? There is no better time than now.”