Over 196 soldiers stationed in the North-East and other active regions have reportedly requested voluntary retirement from the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Taoreed Lagbaja.

SaharaReporters reports that most of the soldiers resigning had indicated interest to join the military forces of other countries, including the British Army, Ukrainian Army, and other Commonwealth nations.

The soldiers, drawn from various formations of the army across the country according to the list obtained on Saturday, are all junior cadres.

The Chief of Army Staff has since approved their formal disengagement.

The list of the exiting soldiers did not distinguish between those embarking on voluntary retirement and those leaving the army on medical grounds.

However, none of them had neither attained retirement age nor the mandatory years of service.

The approval of their voluntary disengagement dated August 23 was signed by Brigadier OH Musa.

SaharaReporters recently reported moves by many soldiers to resign over poor welfare, inadequate equipment, and lack of motivation within the Nigerian Army.

Multiple sources who spoke to the newspaper had expressed frustration with the Nigerian government’s failure to provide them with decent living conditions, modern weapons, and adequate compensation to combat a series of non-state actors ravaging the country.

#Instablog9jaNews #Information #Awareness #StayUpdated

In a bid to address what it described as growing trend of unreasonable pricing of consumer goods and services and the unwholesome practice of market associations resulting in exploitative procing, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Thursday gave traders and other market stakeholders one month moratorium to crash the prices of goods, Nairametrics is reporting.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the FCCPC, Mr Tunji Bello gave the moratorium at a one-day stakeholders engagement on exploitative pricing on Thursday in Abuja. Bello, who recently took over as the boss of FCCPC said the Commission will begin enforcement after the moratorium.

According to the FCCPC boss, the meeting was called in response to the growing trend of unreasonable pricing of consumer goods and services and the unwholesome practice of market associations.

Citing an example of such exploitative pricing, the FCCPC boss said the Commission’s finding that a fruit blender known as Ninja was being sold at a popular supermarket in Texas for 89 dollars (N140,000.00) but the same product was displayed for N944,999.00 in a supermarket in Victoria Island, Lagos. Bello wondered the basis for the arbitrary hike in the price of the blender compared to the Texas, United States of America.

He said the unwholesome practices including price fixing was threa ening the stability of the economy. “Under Section 155, violators whether individuals or corporate entities face severe penalties including substantial fines and imprisonment if found guilty by the court. This is intended to deter all parties involved in such illicit activities. However, our approach today is not punitive. I, therefore, call on all stakeholders to embrace the spirit of patriotism and cooperation. It is in this spirit that we are giving a moratorium of one month (September) before the Commission will start firm enforcement,” he said.

Bello said the government was aware of most of the problems raised by the market stakeholders. “We have heard and you have genuine issues and government has the responsibility to address the problems but generally, let us talk to ourselves too. There are also gang ups to exploit consumers by traders,” he said.