Soldiers protest in Jos, workers rage against research council
Soldiers protest in Jos, workers rage
against research council
25 of the 210 soldiers dismissed from
the Third Armoured Division, Jos have protested
against their dismissal at the Nigeria Union of
Journalists (NUJ) Secretariat, Plateau State
Council.
The soldiers said that having visited the war
zones of Sambisa Forest, Baga and many other
areas to confront the dreaded Boko Haram
insurgents, they were deceived in believing that
they needed replacement having spent their
mandatory six months only to face a disciplinary
committee headed by one Lt.-Col. Gambo where
the two charges were read to them but they
vehemently refused to admit as charged,
describing them as frivolous and malicious and
that they were not guilty at all.
Speaking with journalists yesterday at the NUJ
Secretariat in Jos, the spokesman of the
dismissed soldiers, Private Agunloye Sunday, who
claimed they were framed up with a two-count
flimsy charges of refusal to perform military duty
and failure to obey orders from their commanders,
said he would address journalists on behalf of his
colleagues on the condition that their photographs
would not taken and journalists agreed to that
term.
He said that they passed out from their military
training in 2013 where they were taken to Cassia
Military Base in Kaduna State from where they
were taken to Maiduguri, the then headquarters of
Boko Haram.
Agunloye said that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-
Gen. Kenneth Minimah, promised them up-to-
date sophisticated weapons that they would use
in fighting the terrorists in the bush.
According to him: “They did not see anything
apart from two water tankers where they were
just dropped at the Mubi in Adamawa from there
to Lassa armed with old-fashioned equipment
where they were able to capture some villages in
Maiduguri from the insurgents.
The soldiers, who were looking hungry and
demoralised, appealed earnestly to the Defence
Headquarters to come to their aid and temper
justice with mercy.
However, a source at the Third Division told The
Guardian that the dismissal of the soldiers was
the outcome of the court-martial they underwent,
adding that they have been staying in the
barracks all this while.
Newsweb Express
