LOCKED AWAY

I listened to a Channels TV report this evening on the ongoing military operations in Bornu state. In that report, the theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole visited his troops perhaps to boost their morale and he was captured doing some pushups. The Commander spoke and then a lance corporal spoke on behalf of his peers.

In summary, the majority of the troops via their spokesman expressed their displeasure on the repeated failure of their commanders to grant them the holidays they had been promised. In order words, majority of these men and women have been left at the war front for more than 12 months without the opportunity to visit their loved ones or attend to other pressing matters.

This is tragic indeed and all I can feel for our men in uniform is compassion. It is easy for some people to berate the entire military for the misdemeanor of a few and so fail to reason with the complaints of the soldiers. It is uncertainties like these coupled with the palpable horror of enganging armed foes that lead to diverse kinds of psychological turmoils especially post traumatic stress disorder.

The naked truth is that we don't have the manpower to ensure that soldiers fulfil time bound tours. The plan to double the number of boots in the army will take eight long years. There are different Army formations and corps across the nation that cannot be collapsed because of the war; there are also those soldiers who will not fit into the infantry corp because of their specializations elsewhere.

It is important that these men and women are supported instead of getting stick most of the time. They have a very important assignment at the moment and the unnecessary distraction emanating from certain regions in the country should not be encouraged. Soldiers who could potentially relieve those on active duty are currently being deployed to other hot spots; they need our help and support. Some may think they owe the military nothing because they were not forced to sign up to lay down their lives in the first place. If they are stretched beyond their modulus of elasticity; then we should be prepared to take over their gear and fight for our own survival.

We may have our visas and data pages ready to bail but like Asa sang; "one day the river will overflow and there'll be no way for us to go...then we will run... run wishing we had put out the fire.." We ridicule the military when we openly or covertly support those who impoverished those alive and caused the deaths of more than a few gallant men. We pummel then with our words and disdain for the nation; we kill them when we do not bother to show concern for all they go through. I pray that complete peace and safety returns to the entire Northeast of Nigeria and that those men will spend Christmas and this year's holidays with their loved ones without any need to report for any emergency assignments. Amen.

There was also the small matter of conditions at a Federal prison in Kano during that broadcast. The living conditions were shown to be deplorable and there were reports of many locked up for years without trial or execution as the case may be. One fellow interviewed through a cage-like structure told the correspondent that he and a friend had been there for 14years on a false accusation of stealing a transistor radio. The owner of the radio was said to have contrived with the prison authorities to have them locked up albeit for 14 years and counting.

The dioscorea loving voltrons who constantly reverb in our ears how unjust it is to adorn the wrists of a certain spokesman with lockable jewelry will do very well to wail on behalf of the many unjustly imprisoned men and women across our many dilapidated prisons across the nation. Thank you as you lend your vocal cords.