Brigadier
General M.Y. Ibrahim, the newly posted General Officer Commanding the 7th
Division of the Nigerian Army located at Maimalari Barracks, Maiduguri got a
taste of soldiers’ fury on Thursday afternoon as angry soldiers stormed his
office to demand that he pay their allowances and reinstate motorbikes to
transport them and members of their families within the barrack. Sahara reports
Several
sources in the barracks told SaharaReporters that the soldiers’ second act of
mutiny in two weeks began around 3:00 p.m. (Nigerian time). The angry soldiers
blew a whistle, and most of the rank and file gathered at a spot before they
marched en masse to the 7th Division headquarters building where the GOC’s
office is located.
The sources
said the sources shot in the air as they marched and chanted “We no gree oh, we
no gree!” Our sources said the protesting soldiers were upset about the army’s
failure to pay their outstanding allowances. Continue
They were also annoyed by the
decision of the newly posted GOC to ban motorcycles as a form of transport
within the barracks. The new GOC reportedly banned motorbikes known as Okada
and tricycles known as “Keke NAPEP” from operating within the vast barracks.
The soldiers wondered why the new commander would prohibit the use of the only
affordable means of transport they have when he knows full well that the base
covers a huge area and that few soldiers own cars or bike.
“If no okada
[motorcycles] are allowed, then our small children have to walk to school and
our wives will walk to market,” one of the soldiers told SaharaReporters. “Are
we not suffering too much already?” he added.
Once they
arrived at the GOC’s office, the protesting soldiers decided to give him a dose
of the experience of navigating within the barracks without motorcycles. They ordered
Major General XYZ to come outside the building, pushing and shoving him. Then they forced him to trek all through the
barracks.
The angry
soldiers also demanded the payment of their N100, 000 furniture allowance
which, according to them, was long overdue.
Last week,
frustrated soldiers at the same barracks demonstrated and shot at the car of
their erstwhile GOC, Major General Ahmadu Mohammed. The soldiers felt that
General Mohammed’s operational orders were responsible for the death of close
to 100 soldiers who were returning from an operation in Chibok, the town where
members of the Islamist group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 high schoolgirls near
midnight on April 14.
The abduction of the girls, who remain missing, has
sparked outrage in Nigeria and around the world.
Military
authorities in Abuja decided to remove Major General Mohammed a day after the
first mutiny.
One of the
soldiers who spoke to SaharaReporters stated that he and his colleagues want
military authorities to be more focused in their approach to the war against
Boko Haram. “We can finish them [Boko Haram] without difficulty, but the
commanders don’t give us enough weapons for operations. And they send only a
few of us to fight hundreds of Boko Haram fighters,” he said.
Maiduguri, the
capital of Borno State, has been the flashpoint of numerous bloody attacks by
Boko Haram
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