Human rights activist and lawyer, Mr.
Femi Falana (SAN) has described President Goodluck Jonathan’s suspended
visit to Chibok as an expression of his fear for the soldiers in Borno
State.
Speaking with SUNDAY PUNCH in a
telephone interview, Falana said the President put on hold his visit to
Chibok not because he was afraid of Boko Haram but because he feared
the likely action of the soldiers stationed there in view of the mutiny
on Wednesday by the 7 Infantry Division of the Nigerian Army in
Maiduguri.
“Why did President Goodluck Jonathan
cancel his visit to Chibok? Is he afraid of Boko Haram? No. He is afraid
of the soldiers, his army. The mutiny that occurred in Chibok was a
reaction against the way the authority is treating the soldiers. They
are not happy. Even Jonathan admitted to these soldiers being
ill-equipped during his last media chat. What happened to the trillions
of naira budgeted for the army in the last three years?” Falana asked.
He added that Nigerian soldiers fighting Boko Haram were demoralised and not motivated.
“These soldiers are not motivated. For
instance, for every soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, the US
Secretary of State sends a handwritten and signed letter to each family
of the killed soldiers. The American government pays all their
entitlements within two, three weeks or one month. The Americans care
for their soldiers. They give the dead soldiers a hero’s burial.
“Here, we don’t even get to know the
names of the fallen soldiers. Their families are not usually cared for.
One thousand soldiers died and we don’t know them; we don’t have their
names. The press is just reporting about Boko Haram and the number of
people killed. No one is talking about the soldiers, the number and
names of those killed and their families”, the human rights lawyer
observed.
He also alleged that the soldiers were thrown into battle terrains they were not familiar with.
According to him, Nigerian soldiers are intelligent and valiant considering their exploits in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Speaking further, he said, “The military
authority commanded these valiant soldiers to go to terrains they don’t
understand. It’s too easy for them to be ambushed by the insurgents.
These are fantastic men who had done well in peacekeeping missions in
Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Amnesty International’s report is true.
The security operatives were given advance information about Boko Haram;
but they claimed they had too many pieces of information they were
working with.”
The Punch had earlier in the
week reported that several soldiers were killed when troops of the 7
Infantry Division ran into an ambush of the insurgents at a Muleh, Jere
Local Government Area of Borno State on Tuesday. Muleh is said to be
located along the Maiduguri-Biu Road.
The soldiers became incensed when they
sighted the bodies of their fallen colleagues and friends with several
others injured in the attack.
A security source said the angry
soldiers almost went wild when the General Officer Commanding the
division, Maj-Gen Abubakar Mohammed, attempted to address them.
The angry soldiers were said to have
shot repeatedly into the air which made several of their calmer
colleagues to run for cover. It was learnt that the enraged soldiers
attempted to attack the official vehicle of the GOC who was quickly
ferried out of the Maimalari Barracks headquarters of the division.
Mohammed, had since been removed with Brig.-Gen. M. Y Ibrahim appointed as his replacement.
Meanwhile, the authorities of the
Nigerian Army on Thursday reacted to the mutiny of some soldiers of the 7
division by instituting a high-powered delegation to investigate the
occurrence.
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