According to The Punch, a soldier has claimed that he witnessed incidents that suggested some military chiefs work with Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East. The soldier told the Voice of America Hausa Service how his military unit in Borno State was ambushed by Boko Haram members. He said the commander of a nearby military unit in Bama recently sought assistance from his unit in carrying out a raid.
The soldier, who did not give his name, said when the two military units joined up, they were given different uniforms. The Bama unit commander, according to him, gave his own troops green uniforms while his unit received tan “desert camouflage” uniforms. When the troops reached the battle area, the soldier said the commander of the better-equipped Bama unit suddenly withdrew his forces, leaving the remaining troops to fend for themselves against Boko Haram fighters.
Speaking in Hausa, he said, “We had only light arms and our men were being picked off one after the other.” The soldier also said he recognised some of the Boko Haram fighters as his former military trainers in Kontagora, a town near Abuja. “We realised that some of them were actually mercenaries from the Nigerian army… hired to fight us,” he said. The soldier also claimed that many of his colleagues were deserting the army because of their frustrations with what he said was the politicisation of the fight against the militants.
He said, “I swear by Allah, there are soldiers who are coming out of the forest after they were abandoned; several of them dropped their weapons and just went home. “There were more than 20 of them from this battalion in Kwanduga. Even me that is talking to you now, I am preparing to leave. I just want to tell the world so that they will know what is happening. These people are doing this secretly.” He also claimed that there was a deliberate attempt to further impoverish the North preparatory to the 2015 general elections.
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