Police Recall Owohunwa, Lough, 470 Others After Court Ruling

National Security, Nigeria, Public Safety

Nigeria Police Reopens Retirement Battle as 475 Officers Are Ordered for Induction After Court Ruling

A court victory has now turned into a bureaucratic reckoning for 475 retired police officers, exposing a deeper struggle over ranks, records and the politics of police retirement.

Atlantic Post

August 2, 2026

3–5 minutes

AIG Idowu Owohunwa, Court of Appeal, DCP Simon Lough, Nigeria Police Force, Police Service Commission, Police Staff College Jos

The Nigeria Police Force has reopened one of its most sensitive internal battles, ordering 475 officers previously retired under the disputed “merger of service” policy to report for a compulsory six-month induction course at the Police Staff College, Jos, after a court-backed reversal of their retirements.

The development comes against the backdrop of a fresh leadership era in the Force, with Olatunji Disu confirmed as Inspector-General of Police by the State House on 2 March 2026.

At the centre of the storm is a confidential memorandum dated 31 July 2026 and issued through the office of the Force Secretary, AIG Olabode Adeleye Akinbamilowo, whose department officially handles retirements and certificates of service within the Nigeria Police Force.

The document, according to the material circulated inside the Force, instructs zonal assistant inspectors-general and state commissioners of police to “locate and warn” the affected officers to report to Jos, while warning that “lateness will not be tolerated.”

The action is the latest consequence of a legal fight that has already gone from the National Industrial Court to the Court of Appeal.

In April 2026, the appellate court affirmed the reinstatement of 455 retired senior officers, holding that the National Industrial Court had rightly nullified their earlier retirement. The Punch reported that the affected officers included AIG Idowu Owohunwa, AIG Ben Igwe and DCP Simon Lough, among others.

The same appellate judgment, Punch further reported, upheld the lower court’s order that the officers be reinstated and that the controversy over the date of first appointment of Cadet ASP Courses 18, 19 and 20 was effectively settled.

The matter arose after the Police Service Commission, working with the police leadership, retired 455 senior officers on 31 January 2025, a move described in court proceedings as illegal and forceful.

What makes the current directive so explosive is that it does not merely restore the officers to duty; it also forces them through a long induction process that, in effect, resets their administrative standing before their records are regularised.

In the memo, the induction is split into two phases: arrival and documentation from 1 to 16 August 2026, followed by the six-month induction proper from 17 August 2026 to 16 February 2027.

The Commandant of the Police Staff College, Jos, is also instructed to submit returns of documented participants by 24 August 2026. Those instructions, if implemented as circulated, suggest that the Force is trying to harmonise seniority, dates of first appointment and retirement calculations in a single sweep.

The officer list itself reads like a cross-section of the upper and middle command structure of the police establishment. Among those named are AIG Idowu Owohunwa, AIG Benneth Chinedu Igwe, AIG Uche Ifeanyi Henry and DCP Simon Asamber Lough, with entries spanning entrant courses from the early 1990s to 2012.

The memo also names officers such as AIG Joseph O. Eribo, CP Fidelis Ndubuisi Ogarabe, SP Olasukanmi Lateef Olujide, CSP Sanusi Amiru, CSP Grace Idowu Agboola, CSP Oluwadare Ezekiel Ayeni, CSP Angela Agabe, DCP Akinbayo Olasukami Olasoji, DCP Louis Chike Nwabuwa, ACP Benjamin Okehielam Okwara and CSP Rita A.A. Inoma-Abbey, PhD.

The breadth of the list underlines that this is not a narrow disciplinary issue but a service-wide administrative reset.

The document also shows how the Police are trying to justify the new order through retirement arithmetic. In the case of AIG Owohunwa, the memo lists his retirement by age as July 20, 2030, while for DCP Lough the age-based retirement date is listed as 14 May 2029.

For several other officers, the dates are years away, which raises an obvious question: why are officers whose retirement is still some distance off being made to undergo compulsory induction now?

The most plausible reading is that the Force wants all the affected records aligned to a single legal and administrative baseline after the court ruling. That is an inference, but it is the clearest explanation consistent with the material reviewed.

There is also a visible tension between the number reported by the court judgment and the number in the memo. Punch reported 455 officers in the appeal-court decision, while the circulating directive says 475 officers are to report for induction. Until the Force issues a public clarification, the difference leaves open the possibility of either an expanded list, a corrected database, or a later administrative revision.

What is beyond dispute is that the case has become a litmus test for how the Nigeria Police Force handles internal justice, record-keeping and obedience to court orders. If the induction goes ahead without controversy, it could finally close a bitter chapter that has embarrassed the institution for months. If not, the dispute may yet return to the courts, this time over compliance, timing and the legal meaning of “reinstatement” in a force where seniority and appointment dates are everything.