Nigeria, April 19 -- Nine years after their arbitrary dismissal, 38 senior Nigerian Army officers, including major generals, brigadier generals, colonels and lieutenant colonels, remain on the margins, their lives upended and their dignity denied, as the Nigerian Army continues to defy court orders directing their reinstatement.

The officers, compulsorily retired on 9 June 2016, have taken every legal and institutional avenue open to them: they have won favourable judgments at the National Industrial Court, secured resolutions from both chambers of the National Assembly, engaged human rights lawyers, and written directly to two successive presidents. Nothing has worked.

One of them, Ojebo Ochankpa, died in 2017 - still waiting for justi...