Dismissed soldier cries out for help

Dismissed soldier cries out for help

The recent dismissal of 227 soldiers by the Nigerian military authorities over accusation of disobeying orders to fight Boko Haram was unjust and skewed in rendering the dismissed personnel as scapegoats, one of the victims said yesterday.

Last week, the military headquarters of 3 Division in Jos, Plateau State dismissed the soldiers, a day after the sack of four officers in Lokoja, Kogi State.

But one of the dismissed soldiers in the 3 Division in Jos, Sergeant Abiola Ilesa told BBC Hausa that they were not given a fair hearing as the trial went unilaterally.

“We are 227. We were not having enough ammunitions; no armoured tanks. We fought with the small guns we were given and that was how we laboured to be confronting them (insurgents).

“We had even complained for the need of armoured tanks. But despite the money budgeted for the purchase of these arms, they did not provided us with them. We should not have been blamed for anything like that,” Sergeant Ilesa revealed.

He was asked of whose fault it since he exonerated themselves, the dismissed Sergeant was said “actually, it was the fault of our senior military personnel. Perhaps, they enjoy or benefit from the insurgency in the country that is why they don’t want to end it.

“Had those arms been provided, I think Boko Haram would have been history by now.”

Sergeant Ilesa recalled that “on June 9, last year…Boko Haram engaged us. They killed about 50 soldiers on that day alone. I was shot on the leg and I fell down.”

On their working conditions, the soldier narrated that “we were being given two pieces of ‘Pure Water’ in a day with a single meal. The money we were supposed to collect at the end of every month was not reaching us.”

He therefore called on Nigerians to wade into their plight “because we were not given opportunity to defend ourselves during the trial.” 

The mass sack of the soldiers has led to the widespread anxiety in the barracks across the country, as five more soldiers were on Friday dismissed from the Supply and Transport unit of the 2 Division headquarters in Ibadan.

Source: Daily Trust