Nine cadets of the 67 Regular Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) who were dismissed after their Presidential commissioning on October 5, 2019, have been ordered to be reinstated by the Federal High Court sitting in Kaduna. The court also ordered the military institution to pay the accrued entitlements of the affected cadets from the date of their dismissal.
The cadets were allegedly dismissed for holding a night party after their passing-out parade, officiated by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in 2019. The affected cadets, after exhausting all avenues without a positive result, resorted to a lawsuit to which the NDA, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Minister of Defence, among others, were parties.
A committee was set up by the House of Representatives, which probed the matter in 2021. After concluding its investigation, it was discovered that 15 out of the affected cadets had successfully graduated according to the handbook of the military institution. The court judgment has ordered that the 15 cadets be given their academy certificates and posted to their various commands for onward redeployment.
Reacting to the development, a parent of the affected cadets, Mohammed Daura, expressed his disappointment, stating that none of the children had done anything incriminating or involved in examination malpractices all through their period in the NDA. He said what happened to them was an act of wickedness.
However, a top military source who spoke on the condition of anonymity stated that the dismissed cadets could still be reinstated. He said such was not common, adding that their dismissals could still be reviewed. Rasheed Adegoke, SAN, commented that the military authorities had a penchant for disobeying court orders, and the judgment might be flagrantly disregarded.
