The detained soldiers also lamented their current pathetic conditions in detention, which is making some of them faint and lose consciousness.
No fewer than 120 soldiers currently detained at 1 Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna State for allegedly committing various offences have lamented the Division’s refusal to implement the provision of the Armed Forces Act on Status Bar on the discharge of detainees who have spent three years and above in detention.
The detained soldiers also lamented their current pathetic conditions in detention, which is making some of them faint and lose consciousness.
They lamented that they are suffocating as about 50 of them are forced to stay in three small rooms.
Some of the detained soldiers who spoke with SaharaReporters on the condition of anonymity lamented that some of them had been in detention for about four years and more.
The detained soldiers lamented that they are being starved and left to fend for themselves, adding that some have become visually impaired while some have been divorced by their wives following their long detention without access to their families.
They also lamented that being detained under the command of General Okoro Valentine, who was just changed recently, some of them do not know their preferred charges while others have not been arraigned.
They told SaharaReporters that they confirmed that their counterparts in 8 Division Sokoto, Sokoto State, 7 Division Maiduguri, Borno State and Court Martial Army Headquarters are all implementing the Status Bar by discharging soldiers detained for more than three years.
One of the soldiers said that “8 Division Sokoto has confirmed the three year status bar, that the division is implementing the status bar. They are discharging detained soldiers after three years.
“The same thing with 7 Division Maduguri, they are implementing the status bar. Court Martial Army Headquarters Garrison is also implementing the status bar. It is only 1 Division that is not implementing it.
“At 1 Division here, many detained soldiers have gotten to the status bar because they have been in detention for three years and even more but they are not discharging them. They have been taking them to court.
“Many detained soldiers have reached three or four years. Section 118 of the Armed Forces Act provided that any case that reached three years should be thrashed.”
Another detained soldier said that “The worst thing is that if they want to sentence a detained soldier, they would say that if the person has spent four years in detention, the years the person has suffered will not count.”
The detained soldiers called on the Nigerian army headquarters to look into the 1 Division’s refusal to implement the status bar for the detainees.
They reiterated that they have confirmed that “in 8 Division Sokoto, anyone they detain for more than three years, they will discharge the person. The same thing with Maiduguri and the army headquarters garrison.”
When SaharaReporters contacted the Nigerian Army for comment and reaction, the Army spokesperson, Major General Onyema Nwachukwu, denied the allegations.
He said, “I can confirm that the story is untrue and that the only few cases currently being treated involve personnel sponsored by the Nigerian Army in civil institutions, who changed their courses of study without approval from the appropriate authority.
“There are terms and conditions that personnel must comply with, when sponsored for in civil institutions. Those who violated the rules were recalled for investigation.”
When confronted with the Army Spokesperson’s claim, affected soldiers who said they have spent over three or four years in detention said that the army spokesperson is talking about a different issue entirely.
One of the soldiers said, "What he is doing is to use that to cover up what we are complaining of. In our own guard room, here, we are more than 50 and many have been in detention for about four years and they are still either being tried or ignored. We are talking about the 1 Division not implementing Status Bar as provided in Section 169 of the Armed Forces Act that in any case where whether a soldier or a civilian has been detained for three years and above, the case should either be trashed or the person discharged and acquitted but here, those who have been detained for more than three years and still being tried while some have been sentenced to 10 years in prison while the years they spent in guard room did not count."
Another of the soldiers who is currently in detention and said he has spent almost four years in detention lamented that his father died while he is in detention and that his wife has divorced him as she said that she can no longer bear with him.
He said, "My father has died as I am here. I am now a divorcee because my wife left me. She said she can no longer wait for me and my four children are with my mother who is already aged. What the Army spokesperson is talking about is a different thing entirely. He just want to cover up. 8 Division Sokoto, 7 Division Maiduguri and even Court Martial Army Headquarters are all discharging detainees who have spent three years and above in detention. It is only 1 Division Kaduna that is not doing it."
SaharaReporters was also informed that a civilian, one of the detainees in the suffocating detention guard rooms of the 1 Division Kaduna slumped and lost consciousness and was immediately rushed to a hospital.