The Nigerian Army NA has responded to what is refers to as unsubstantiated reports on the mainstream media alleging protests staged by soldiers of an unidentified battalion in Operation Lafiya Dole, over their posting to a location in the Theatre of Operation.
In a statement issued today by the Director, Army Public Relations, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Yerima, the media reports also claim that the aggrieved soldiers yesterday besieged the headquarters of the Theatre Command in Borno State, shooting sporadically into air to protest alleged unpaid operational allowances as well as obsoleted equipment.
TheFact Nigeria reports that the Headquarters, Theatre Command, Operation Lafiya Dole has denied the allegations, calling them unsubstantiated and not representing the true situation of the incidents.
“Preliminary investigations by Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj. Gen. Farouq Yahaya, revealed that what some media reports described as a protest was a mild complaint by few soldiers of Mobile Strike Team MST, deployed for Exercise Tura Takaibango in the frontline of Operations.
“At about 3pm on 25 March, 2021, some of the troops of Mobile Strike Team 10 and 11, who were primed to conduct phase 2 of Exercise Tura Takaibango in Bama after the first phase of the exercise, raised some concerns which was quickly addressed before they were relaunched to the second phase of the Operations”, the statement read.
With regards to the issue of ‘obsolete weapons’ the NA posited that soldiers have a right to demand for proper weapons to prosecute the operations, adding that the Federal Government was making concerted efforts toward deploying new fighting equipment to augment the existing ones in the Theartre of Operation.
The Army also cleared the air concerning unpaid allowances, stressing that no soldier was owed any operational allowances in the Theater, as alleged by media reports.
