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 a national daily 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. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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Mr. Falana is correct. This soldiers were never trained and treated as professionals. The big wigs in the military are using this soldiers as pawns in a chess game just like politicians are treating the citizen that put them in power. This state of madness must stop before that country can progress. There has to be a complete revamp of the government structure. We have and will always advocate the break-up of Nigeria into Six independent regional zones under one country called the New Nigeria. The zones must be independent of the Federal government. This will give the citizens more power at the local level. Abuja is too corrupt and inept. The people of Nigeria are depending too much on the people in Abuja. If we bring the government closer to the people we will cut corruption as we know it now down to about 10-20%. We are currently running a corrupt country at the rate of well over 100%.
ReplyDeleteThe people of Nigeria will see a big difference like:
The North can practice their form of Sharia Islam without disturbing others
The other regions can practice the kind of Govt. that is best fit to their people
The police will be locally controlled and quickly held accountable
Local politician can no longer promise and fail because they will be so close to the people
Federal election will be less of a threat to any particular ethnic group
No more Senators and Representatives
Federal government will be cheap to run
Some states might think of running a system whereby you have the Governors at the helm, Local government next to it and each local government having just two representatives to make state laws and advice the governor. They will also have the power to recall the governor through referendum by the people. (Power back to the people principle)
Federal Govt. will be responsible for things like the Military, Diplomatic missions, Regional meeting ground on a six months basis
This arrangement will spark healthy competition among the SIX independent regions
Growth will come and people will feel ownership of their government.
At the moment, the crazy experiment with CONFAB is only coming up with status quo. They are suggesting creating more states. Our situation is like a rich father with 30 children and not smart enough to take care of them. The solution proposed is to have more kids? Wow! This is INSANITY at the highest level. Some are even some people that are calling for change to the name Nigeria. Is that going to change the people? The goal is tom change the mindset of the people from the lowest numerator to the highest denominator. We can do this if the people can just get involve and demand change. What I see right now are people that are not interested and less informed about what is going on. They will rather say this like “there is God o! “Na God go help us for this country” “na prayer we need o” and so on. Stop invoking God in the situation of Nigeria. God will not come down from heaven to help you. We are free thinking human being created by the Almighty creator so that we can create greatness. Our politicians are using religion and ethnicity to suppress the thinking of the citizens. Stop this madness and let us take our country back. If you don’t die you cannot go to heaven. If we don’t stand for something we will continue to fall for anything. Think Nigerians.