OVER 3,000 soldiers recently pardoned by the military high command after being found guilty of mutiny by an army court martial have rejected their reposting to the frontline in the northeast to engage Boko Haram.
Last August, the 3,032 soldiers were pardoned for various offences during campaigns against the Islamic terrorist group, with their death sentences and prison terms commuted. However, the troops have refused to return to the front, adding that they were never really pardoned and re-integrated into the Nigerian Army but rather, re-sentenced to the war front.
Earlier this week, the soldiers gathered at the Command and Staff College of the Nigerian Army School of Infantry, in Jaji, near Kaduna to inform its commandant Major General Kassim Abdulkareem, of their decision. According to the troops, they have been subjected to unimaginable ill treatment after their pardon and they have been assigned new riffles, so will not ready for deployment to the front on the 11 January.
According to military sources, the soldiers complained that they have not been fully re-instated into the Nigerian Army and attempts by them to report to their units were rejected at their bases since they have no re-instatement letters. They added that since they have been kicked out of the barracks they have not been paid for seven months making their families who now live off-barracks, beg for food.
Gathering in Jaji, the soldiers chanted: “We are not going! Give us re-instatement letters! You are sentencing us back to war.”
Upon seeing their mood, Major General Abdulkareem hurriedly left the barracks the soldiers were becoming uncontrollable. It is not yet clear if he will meet with them later, whether their requests will be looked into or whether the troops face fresh disciplinary action.
One of the soldiers said: “Look at me, I have put in about 28 years of my life serving this country. I have seen action in Liberia, I have been to Rwanda, Sudan and even served overseas and we the Nigerian troops did very well and were decorated in some occasions.
“However, our experience in fighting to save our motherland is too sad a story for the outside world to know. We are not cowards but we were held for over four months facing Boko Haram and after the Army dismissed about 5,000 of us, 3032 of us were pardoned last August but since then the authorities have treated us like prisoners of wars.
He added that they were told to assemble in Jaji on August 17, which they did and then on August 19, the general officer commanding the First Infantry Division of the Nigerian Army Major General Adeniyi Oyebade moved them to the Nigerian Army Training Centre in Kontagora without any prior warning. According to the soldier, some of them found ourselves there in bathroom slippers and they were without any additional clothes or uniform, subjected to what was clear punishment, not training, for another three weeks.
“Still in the clothes we came, we were again relocated to 333 artillery Barracks, Njetilo, Maiduguri. We got nothing but constant insults as cowards and we were there without uniforms or arms.
"They just left us there and we were abused and told to assemble at every two hours through these days for another three weeks. At Jaji, we went through another round of punishment, not training and were not given any letter to show that we are still serving soldiers, so when the commandant came and said we were going back to the northeast, without clearing our status, we felt we have been punished enough,” the soldier added.
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