Army chief orders investigation into soldiers’ protest of overcrowded cells, poor feeding

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Taofeek Lagbaja, has ordered investigations into allegations of overcrowded cells in the Nigerian Army barracks and poor feeding of detained operatives across the country.

This followed the emergence of a video showing detained soldiers protesting their poor treatment in a detention centre in Sokoto State.

The Director of Army Public Relations, Maj-Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, disclosed this in a statement titled: “Army’s Response to Viral Audio Visual Footage of Soldiers Protesting Overcrowded Cells, Poor Feeding” on Saturday in Abuja.

The statement read: “The Army headquarters has taken note of a report and audiovisual recording circulating on social media produced by some of its personnel held in custody at the 8 Division Garrison detention facility.

“Undoubtedly, the Sokoto barracks detention facility incident is quite unfortunate and an embarrassment to the sound administration efforts of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), to say the least and in line with his leadership style.

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“The COAS has instituted an appropriate investigation into the incident to determine whether it is an isolated or widespread situation in similar detention facilities.

“While the service regrets and has gleaned some lessons from the incident, it will, however, not condone the manner the inmates expressed their purported grievance.

“Mutiny and conduct prejudicial to service order are grievous misconducts, and this very incident epitomises such.

“As such, as Army, on the one side, goes ahead to implement the COAS directive to look into the state of all NA detention facilities, as detainees’ lives also matter, the Service shall not shy away from appropriately sanctioning the soldiers involved in the unruly behaviour in its Sokoto detention facility for failing to exhaust all available options to channel their complaints to the appropriate authorities.

“And if it was discovered they did and nothing was done, necessary administrative actions will be taken against anyone found to have failed to discharge his/her duties effectively.”

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