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Forty-five Nigerian soldiers have been burnt beyond
recognition while returning to their families in their base in Monguno,
Borno
State, after serving in a tasking peacekeeping
mission in
Darfur. How come that the soldiers had to travel by
road from
Abuja to their base in
Borno
State (a distance of almost 1000 km) and at
night? Why were they not flown straight to
Maiduguri?
Why were the troops not lodged in hotels or guest houses to stay the night and
make the trip in the day time? Would a group of generals be subjected to the
callousness of a night trip in open trucks? Those that made the decision to
transport the soldiers by road and in trucks should be punished for this
avoidable carnage. This avoidable carnage is a result of Nigerian callous
system of segregation, where people working in the same organization are
accorded different treatment.
The shame is just too much. The Newspapers were confused in
their reports. Were Nigerian soldiers returning from a peacekeeping mission in
Darfur
transported in buses or in trucks? The Nation Newspaper in it’s
headline story of Friday, May 23, 2008 began: “It was a grim, but necessary
task: the battle was on yesterday to retrieve the bodies of 46 soldiers who
died late Wednesday …Soldiers combed the scene of the crash on Bauchi –
Pakiskum road, where a fuel tanker and the bus carrying the soldiers,
including a Captain, collided”. The very next sentence of the Nation’s report
then contradicts: “Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) Commander in Potiskum
Mr Victor Osuhor said the tanker lost control and ran into the last of seven
military trucks traveling in a convoy to
Maiduguri”.
In Thisday of the same
Friday,
May 23, 2008, the cover report on the tragic incidence went thus: “The
dead soldiers, including a captain, were returning from peace-keeping
operations in
Dafur,
Sudan,
when their bus collided with a petrol tanker”. Thisday’s
report also goes on to contradict itself: “The Commander of FRSC in Potiskum,
Yobe State, Mr Victor Osuhor, told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the tanker
lost control and rammed into the last of seven military trucks travelling
in a convoy to Borno State
The tanker dragged the truck several metres
before the two vehicles burst into flames, killing the soldiers, the tanker
driver and his passenger”
So what really is the cause of this contradiction? Were our
soldiers traveling in trucks or in buses? Some readers may wonder why I have
decided to pay attention to “minute” facts in the face of a tragedy of such
massive dimension that calls for sober reflection. I am also mourning the dead,
but have decided to spare some thoughts about the circumstances in which our
soldiers are made to “serve” their fatherland, getting wasted unavoidably in
the process.
From my understanding of how things work in
Nigeria,
let me “conjecture” what may have led to the contradiction within the news
reports. I believe some official or somebody somewhere probably initially tried
to sell it to the media and the world that the soldiers were traveling “in a
bus”. Reason: may be some official account books somewhere may be reading that
“air-conditioned buses” were hired to transport the soldiers from
Abuja
to Monguno, but as usual, some crooks within some system will pocket the funds
that should have hired decent transportation and just send trucks to bring the
troops from
Abuja.
I am often filled with rage with the almost “slave”
treatment that is meted out on our military men. In the Nigerian military, and
especially the army, there is a sad tradition of brazen slavery that exists:
the top hierarchy lords over the “men” and the men are not supposed to
complain. That is why the top army hierarchy could withhold budgeted salary
increases for men of the Nigerian Army for 12 whole months! It took the bravery
of some mid-level officers to blow the whistle. The navy and air force had long
paid their men, but not the army. Another “order” came from Aso Rock to get
army chiefs to pay the money in arrears. Shamefully, the army hierarchy then
quickly found one scapegoat in their Director of Army Finance Corps, as if they
were not collaborators in the grand corruption.
During a rebel attack on the Nigerian contingent in
Darfur
recently, I wept at the picture of our soldiers scampering away with
Ghana-must-go bags. No matter the limit of the mandate, it is a huge shame if
military peacekeepers would scamper for dear live instead of defending
themselves. A BBC report succinctly
put it that “armed men on horseback have attacked and stolen the weapons of
Nigerian UN peacekeepers in
Sudan's
Darfur region.” It can never be that funds were not budgeted for
easy to carry military back-packs. No. but it will be inside some files in the
military high command that money was expended on such wares. A lot of stories
from our soldiers on peace missions to other countries abound about how their
troops from poorer African countries enjoy full per diems, better uniforms,
nice equipment and sufficient canned foods befitting for camp feeding.
As usual, our leaders and military chiefs will shed
crocodile tears and pretend to be concerned. They will shower praises on our
gallant soldiers; they will promise heaven and earth to the bereaved families.
But the critical question rings on in my mind: where in this age are soldiers
returning from peacekeeping missions transported in trucks? Aside from battle
periods or rugged military exercises when “ruggedness” is emphasized, I think
our soldiers deserve transportation that is befitting of human beings and
commensurate with the nature of their service. There is an airport in
Maiduguri,
why could they not be flown to
Maiduguri? In other
climes, the military are transported with dignity, not in trucks. In other
climes, not even cows and other animals would be subjected to travel in the
kind of trucks that our soldiers travel in. We must stop desecrating the
dignity of our soldiers. They deserve the best.
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Posted by Robot| 23.05.2008 23:23