The Army Headquarters has commenced investigation into a viral video of protesting soldiers kept in overcrowded cells and protesting poor feeding at the 8 Division Detention facility in Sokoto State.
One of the protesting soldiers was shot while protesting the condition of the holding facility.
A statement by the director, army public relations, Major General Onyema Nwachukwu, said the Sokoto barracks detention facility incident was unfortunate and an embarrassment to the administrative efforts of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja.
He said the COAS had instituted an appropriate investigation into the incident to determine whether it was an isolated or widespread situation in similar detention facilities.
He added: “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 the Army, on the one side, goes ahead to implement the COAS’ directive to look into the state of all Nigerian Army detention facilities, as detainees’ lives also matter, the service shall not shy away from appropriately sanctioning the soldiers involved in the unruly behaviour 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.”
He said though the service was mindful of its subjective oversight engagements by statutory bodies, it remained primarily a responsible, self-regulating professional body.
He reiterated the commitment of the Nigerian Army to ensuring that everyone, “even those found guilty of aiding terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits, and are awaiting confirmation of their sentencing, as it has been discovered in the Sokoto case is accorded a relatively decent life until their judgment is confirmed and executed.
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