Five days after the very mad and
unbelievably shameless act of reckless, total devilment of several
public transport buses in Lagos, by members of the Nigerian armed
forces, the 81st Division released a statement of total denial.
The Deputy Director, Army Public
Relations, Lt. Col. Omale Ochagwuba, in his publicly released denial,
claimed that “hoodlums” and not soldiers broke and burnt the buses.
The denial by the Nigerian Army is a
painful – but not surprising – blow to Nigerians and a cause for great
alarm. Too many Nigerian civilians of reputable character witnessed the
vandalism and captured the act with their eyes and on camera. Too many
Nigerians were barred by the members of the Nigerian Army from taking
pictures of the mayhem, forced to raise their hands while they walked
past. Too many Nigerian citizens were punished by the soldiers on the
rampage that day.
The denial of this veritable narrative by
the army is a cause for serious concern. Does the army in its denial
mean that the soldiers seen vandalising the buses are hoodlums? With
this denial, does this mean that those implicated will enjoy impunity
for their acts of insolence, reckless endangerment and destruction of
public property worth millions of naira?
What does this blatant denial tell us,
the people, the army is here to defend, and what type of comfort does
this give us with regard to all future matters of security under such
authorised gun wielders? Is it this nature of people we give the right
to bear arms and send to ‘defend’ our local outskirts communities?
If this denial of the truth stands, what
kind of reassurance does this give us about our army’s engagement in the
North-East; what does it tell us about the burning down of Baga in
April 2013, for instance? In what type of hands are our citizens in the
north conflict zones? What does this tell us about all the instances of
claims of army excesses and army-on-army, civilian and civilian-JTF,
terror in Borno State?
Is it every time that the army is
barbaric that hoodlums and terrorists are blamed? At times like this,
one misses Fela who would certainly have released a track about,
Hoodlums in camouflage!
No one is above error, misjudgment and
reckless misadventure, however when an institution like the army, fails
to admit deadly blunders of its men, and rather than mete out the
appropriate punishment to them, goes further in haste without
responsible investigation, to attempt to cover up for treacherous
atrocities, it puts the entire nation in a state of suspended
discombobulation.
When the BRT vandalism first occurred,
Nigerians expected the entire Division responsible to be re-deployed to
Borno State. However, today we have been forced to take a different
position. We cannot any longer trust these service men to wield weapons.
We cannot be so callous as to send these lying Schmuck to our isolated
north-eastern communities. These are the type of military men who aid
and abet Boko Haam, who step back and allow Boko Haram stockup on
weapons from the nation’s armoury; who receive money from Boko Haram and
its federal sponsors to provide aerial support to the terrorists and
assist the terrorists in bombing civilians and soldiers alike.
No comments:
Post a Comment