The Federal Government has taken one of the most significant steps in improving the welfare of active armed forces personnel in decades, increasing their salaries from between 30 per cent and 80 per cent.
Indeed, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has implemented Nigeria’s most robust and historic pay reform for the military under the Consolidated Armed Forces Salary Structure (CONAFSS). Before this, in mid-June 2024, he approved salary increase from the baseline of N49,000 to N50,000 monthly where it has been for five years for the lowest-ranking soldiers to about N104,000 monthly.
Presidential Spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, in announcing the approval by President Tinubu on August 4, 2026, said: “The pay package will increase the yearly salary bill for the country’s armed forces personnel from N660 billion to N924 billion.”
Daily Trust commends this bold step by the President. It is a good step in the right direction. Indeed, this is an uplifting message of appreciation and encouragement to the sacrifices of the men and women of the armed forces who are on the frontlines, daily confronting the prevailing insecurity across the country and ensuring that Nigerians are kept safe and free to go about their businesses.
But we urge the federal government to go beyond the pay rise and implement comprehensive welfare programmes covering quality housing, world-class healthcare access for personnel and families, educational scholarships for children of serving and fallen personnel, expanded life insurance, mortgage facilities, psychological rehabilitation for combat veterans and accelerated pension administration including sustained support for families of the fallen. Improved housing within the barracks should be accompanied with schemes for affordable home ownership for personnel while frontline troops should have reliable feeding rations.
And for them to be alive to enjoy the benefits of the increased pay package while achieving optimal performance, the troops should be equipped with ultimate force multipliers through the deployment of significantly upgraded real-time intelligence assets such as expanded drone and satellite surveillance, to track non-state actors in dense forests and remote territories.
Yet, Daily Trust is shocked that the presidential statement put the total number of Nigeria’s active military personnel at 250,000, a figure widely considered inadequate for a population of over 250 million facing unprecedented internal security threats such that the Army, Navy, and Air Force are fighting multiple non-state actors across the nation’s geopolitical zones.
Generally, the figure represents approximately about 0.98–1.1 military personnel per 1,000 citizens, a ratio significantly lower than the NATO average (about 6 per 1,000) and far below the ratio for nations facing active counter-insurgency conflict, which often ranges from 20 to 50 per 1,000. We believe that the sheer size of Nigeria’s geographic expanse (923,768 square kilometers) with land area of about 910,768 square kilometers and water bodies taking up roughly 13,000 square kilometers means the current figure of 250,000 is too small and therefore spread too thin.
Therefore, we call for the speedy implementation of the directive given by the president for recruitment of troops. However, the process must prioritize fitness, ability, and opportunity for those with passion over other primordial factors in order to bring the full strength of the military in line with appropriate Table of Organisation and Equipment (TOE).
Also, there must be deliberate efforts to ensure that in increasing to the required number of troops, politicisation of recruitment must be dealt with by not allowing politicians and cronies to unduly influence the choice of recruits which may invariably dilute the quality of incoming personnel.
We also implore the federal government to work on general improvement of the economy so that inflation does not eat away at the gains of the pay boost. In addition, we call on the leadership of the military to reflect more and provide an effective, purposeful merit-based leadership that reduces corruption in procurement, payroll, logistics while being transparent and professional in its operational and administrative matters. Together, we look forward to an adequately paid military of commensurate size that is properly equipped and sufficiently motivated to move with effectiveness in defence of the country. Nothing is too much for the men and women who risk everything to ensure national sovereignty.
Again, we implore the president to also increase salaries of paramilitary forces in order to prevent institutional resentment and rivalry, ensure operational synergy in joint task forces, and maintain overall internal security. After all, they operate under the same hazardous conditions. Nothing should be done to lower their morale or disrupt inter-agency cooperation.
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