Hundreds of soldiers fighting at the
war front in
the North East have not been paid their allowances for several months, some
soldiers have said.
The unpaid allowances include Peace Keeping allowances and the daily operational allowances for those engaged in counter insurgency war in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, the soldiers said.
A soldier who spoke to journalists
in Yola said he and about two hundred of his colleagues from 158 Task Force
Battalion who fought in the AU Peace Keeping operation in Guinea Bissau in
2015 were owed six months allowances.
Another soldier said eight of the affected soldiers were killed by Boko Haram in a recent clash in Kareto and another one died in an accident, disputing claims by military authorities that only one soldier died in Kareto, and insisting that the battalion lost eight men while several others went missing.
“When we fought in Guinea Bissau between 2014 and 2015, they promised to pay our allowances immediately we arrived in Nigeria but when we returned they sent us to Jaji for training and promised to pay us before the end of the training. Soon after the training we were posted to fight in Yobe and Borno and nobody is talking about our allowances any more”, one of the soldiers said.
Meanwhile, many soldiers interviewed by Daily Trust in Northern part of Adamawa said they had not received their operational allowances for between three to four months. “I have not received my operational allowance of N1000 per day since November. In every unit you find a number of soldiers facing similar problem,” the soldier said.
Source:Daily Trust
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Society