The US Senate has rejected plans to tighten gun controls, including the restriction of weapons sales to people on terrorism watch lists.
Proposals were brought before the Senate, sponsored by the Democrats, following the death of 49 people in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12.
However the senators voted along party lines, with the majority Republicans blocking the gun control bill.
The Republicans say the fight should not be about gun control but rather how to tackle Islamic extremism which they believe is the root cause of most gun-related violence in the US, while the Democrats are proposing a gun laws reform to make it more difficult for people on the terrorism watch list to be able to purchase guns.
Republicans and members of the National Rifle Association complained that the bills put forward by the Democrats violated the constitutional right to bear arms. They are concerned that without enough “due process”, law-abiding Americans wrongly named on watch lists would be prevented from buying weapons.
In the US, gun dealers are licensed by the federal government and people can be prevented from buying weapons if they have mental health problems or are guilty of serious crimes, but there is no specific prohibition for those on the terrorism watch list. There are currently about one million people on that list.
However, there are other ways to buy guns in the US that do not require any background checks, for example, at gun shows or from a private vendor online.
Heavily armed men suspected to be Fulani herdsmen invaded Vaase community in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State in the early hours of today killing many of the residents.
Residents who spoke to www.icirnigeria.org shortly after the attack said over 10 people were killed while not less than 15 were injured.
Residents said suspected herdsmen stormed the villages at about 1:00 am when residents were asleep and started their killing mission.
“I was sleeping when I heard gun shots sporadically, it was in the middle of the night, there was nowhere to run to, I just managed to hide in the bush close to my backyard, and it was only God that saved some of us. But, this morning, when the day broke, we are still picking those who were killed. So far, we have discovered 10, while 15 are injured,” Said Terdoo Adam, a community leader.
Relations of one of the victims, Aondongu Akombu, also narrated how his younger brother, Torbunde was brutally killed by the suspected herders.
“We all went to sleep, and he was the last person left outside. Around 1:30 am, when gun shots were raging on, I hid somewhere with my two kids, I don’t even know where my wife went to. Suddenly, I heard a cry, but I was helpless. This morning we discovered he was the one gunned down, we rushed him to Zaki Biam, but it was too late,” he stated
Resident also said the invaders did not burn any house and did not destroy any property.
Moses Yamu, An Assistant Suprintendent and Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Benue Command, confirmed the development but said the command was still waiting for the details.
He promised to get back to www.icirnigeria.org as soon as he got more information.
The Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Solomon Arase is set to retire from public service today, having attained the compulsory retirement age of 60 years and served for 35 years.
Arase, Nigeria’s eighteenth Inspector-General of Police, was appointed in April 2015 after former President Goodluck Jonathan sacked his predecessor Suleiman Abba.
The outgoing IGP who hails from Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State, was born on June 21, 1956 and joined the Nigerian Police in December 1981.
He has degrees in Political science and Law from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Benin respectively. He is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Defence Academy.
Meanwhile speculations have been rife as to who will succeed Arase as the new IGP.
Some analysts, citing the federal character principle, are of the opinion that the new IGP should be from the North Central or from the South East.
The distribution of all the service and security chiefs shows that while the North-East has the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Air Staff, the North-West has the DG DSS, the South-West has Chief of Defence Staff and the South-South has Chief of Naval Staff and police IG, while the South-East and North-Central have none.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, who have been charged with forgery and criminal conspiracy by the federal government, will now be arraigned on Monday, June 27, 2016.
Sources said the defendants, earlier scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, June 21, were not served notice of the charges, thereby making it impossible for them to be arraigned as planned.
Trial Judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu also ordered substituted service of the charge on the defendants by pasting it at the notice board of the National Assembly.
This follows an oral application by the prosecuting counsel, David Kaswe, who told the court that it was very difficult to effect personal service of the charge on the defendants.
Former clerk of the national assembly, Salisu Maikasua and his former deputy, Benedict Efeturi were also charged alongside the two senate principal officers.
A court official who pleaded anonymity had explained that the case was assigned to the judge on Thursday but because the Senate does not sit on Fridays and Mondays, the defendants could not be served.
“Had they been served before now, the matter would have come up for arraignment today,” the official said.
The Senate President is also undergoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false declaration of asset during his tenure as Governor of Kwara State.
This is the second in the investigative series, FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS, written by Fisayo Soyombo of TheCable with support from the International Centre for Investigative reporting (ICIR)
By Fisayo Soyombo
Joel Hamidu (pseudonym) has no business being alive. The story of his survival is the purest example of the steel and zeal of the average Nigerian soldier — attributes so rarely spoken of, yet remainpartly responsible for Boko Haram’s failure to overrun the north-east as cruelly planned.
Blown away by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on August 13, 2015, with parts of his body flung either side of the road and his intestine bursting out of his stomach, Hamidu was given no chance to survive. But as he strolled into the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna, on a rainy morning in the third week of May, to discuss his close shave with death, no one would have imagined the blast had only been eight months old.
Although he had lost a limb and half of another, he managed to extricate himself from a vehicle unaided after arriving the agreed meeting point, and energetically bantered with a few soldiers. Just one look at him and one could tell this was a man simply grateful to be alive.
But he betrayed his regrets, too, occasionally punctuating his narration by questioning the country’s love for its warriors. “Is this the same country we fought for, the one we risked our lives for?” he would wail from time to time.
Blast from the pit of hell
“I remember clearly. It was August 13, 2015,” he begins, recalling his last day on the battlefield.
“We were about to go on patrol but the vehicle was not starting, so I tried to open the bonnet to check the batteries and stuff like that.”
He was still trying to figure out the fault when he heard a bang that hurled his body across the road, sending him into blackout. When he regained consciousness half-an-hour later, he was “surprised” that he was still alive.
Left for dead
That surprise must have been spawned by the extent of the damage. His hands had been mangled, his intestine ripped open and his entire body blood-stained. When he was evacuated to the 7 Division Military Hospital, health workers preferred to attend to other patients, thinking he was already death-bound and any time on him would amount to waste.
“They were like this guy will die any moment from now so attending to him is of no use. I was taken to the rear of the hospital,” he says.
“I was abandoned there… they were just waiting for me to give up so they could quickly throw me into the cemetery. But I refused to die. I went through hell, anyway. There is one thing about life; when you are battling for your life you can go to any extent to survive. I said ‘God I don’t want to die.’
“I know I have been fighting; I have been killing people: he that lives by the gun dies by the gun, but my fight is justifiable. I am trying to risk my own life for other people. When I die, who will be left to save these innocent civilians? I have a wife and three kids; if I should die now, what will be their fate?”
His moment of salvation arrived when some soldiers came to the backyard, wanting to urinate. Already feeble from several hours’ loss of blood, Hamidu mustered all the strength left in him just to shake his leg, thereby drawing the attention of the soldiers.
Angered by the sight of an abandoned dying colleague, the compassionate soldiers lifted him to the emergency ward, from where he was rushed to the x-ray department.
“It was in the x-ray department that I collapsed; there was so much loss of blood already,” he says.
“That was when they brought an ambulance to take me to University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).
“I got there at about 7.30pm. The incident happened at 7.30am in the morning, so check the number of hours for which I was left unattended to. If God wasn’t on my side, I would have given up the ghost.”
There are officers, and there are officers
Far from the lacklustre reception he had at the 7 Division Medical Services and Hospital, Maiduguri, doctors at UMTH “really tried”. The Nigerian army medical rep at the hospital received him and called the doctors; they, too, responded swiftly. “Eight to 10 doctors” in all, their head told Hamidu he stood no survival chance irrespective of quality of treatment, if he was not determined to fight.
“He was angry that I didn’t receive medical care for 12 hours but I said ‘Oga, forget about that, all I need now is your help; just assist me so that I will not die.
“He asked me: ‘Are you willing to survive? Treatment in a situation like this is about the patient having the will to survive.
“I said oga I am willing. If I could stay alive from 7.30am to 7.30pm, I believe that with your little effort, I will buy more life.”
Not long after he was wheeled into the theatre, Hamidu passed out. He remained in that state for six days. When he regained sanity on August 19, he discovered that his damaged hands had been chopped off. It was a bittersweet feeling: he was grateful to be alive; yet, without his hands, he admitted he looked “like a vampire”.
“So I happened to find out that my two hands were gone,” he says in a heavy tone. “I was sober anyway; I couldn’t believe it… but I really battled for my life.”
Hamidu reserved special praise for his commanding officer (CO), “a very nice man” who gave him “all the support” he needed.
“He promised me some money. He said if the prosthesis was something he could afford, he would get it for me. Even when my wife came, he took care of her, paid her transport to and fro, gave her money,” Hamidu says, managing a weak smile — his first in more than an hour of talking.
“Look, there are officers and there are officers. Some officers are good; not all of them are bad. It was like God used that CO to assist me.
“Some of them know the right thing to do for their soldiers, but there are some bottlenecks who are trying to treat soldiers as though they are animals.”
After three months, he was referred to the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna, for “onward procedure for rehabilitation and provision of prosthesis”. The medical director at 7 Division hospital, where he made a brief procedural stopover, recommended a bionic prosthesis after examining his medical report.
“They said since my two hands were lacerated, I needed bionic prosthetics.”
It is now seven months of fruitless wait for bionic prosthesis.
Politics with prosthesis
Bionic prosthesis: What the Army could not get for Hamidu
“Ever since then, the madam I met, it was like she wanted to bring some agents that will come and make provision for the prosthesis.
“I told the woman that my issue is not about Nigeria levels [sic], but I will appreciate the experts that will come up with the same bionic prosthesis. They said no, I should listen to the man first.
“After the man made his presentation, I asked him two questions. I said ‘Mr. Man, this your prosthesis, is it fashionable or bionic?’ He said it was fashionable.
“I said okay, to be sincere, where do you think I can get the bionic type? He said I could in Scotland and Germany.”
He blames the lack of a bionic prosthesis on Abimbola Olatilewa Amusu, Major General and former medical director of the hospital but now medical corps commander.
“I was trying to let her know that some of the soldiers packed to Lagos for prosthesis were complaining, so I didn’t see why another Nigerian agent should be marketing it to us when those who travelled abroad had already received theirs.” he says.
“I wanted her to assist me; all I need from her is the recommendation, because the army is willing to take you to any level for further treatment.”
‘Bloody’ corruption
“From the decision-makers at the military hospitals to the highest authorities at the army headquarters, there is a web of corruption at the expense of the soldier’s blood and life,” says a soldier, only after he was promised that he won’t be named to avoid being court-martialled or dismissed from the army.
He gives a few examples: “Sometimes, you get recommendation from above that you will be referred to India or to Germany, but while you’re preparing to travel, you get an order that you will instead be treated in Abuja or in Lagos. It is clear someone somewhere has pocketed the money from your trip, or the person will receive a finder’s fee from the local hospital.
“At other times, you may be referred to India for a particular duration but your stay and amount approved will be drastically reduced by another layer of authority.
“For instance, they have written on your paper that you will be away for three months and they have released $45,000. But the immediate authority will suddenly wake up and say, ‘My friend, you are spending only one month there.’
“They will now issue you money for one month, and I don’t need to tell you that the money for the remaining two months is for their own betterment. Whatever happens to you, even if the money you get is inadequate for your treatment, it is not their business. That one that belongs to them must not be reduced.”
One more soldier explains that there are situations where patients are referred out of the country only to be told a surgery is not required. In such cases, the authorities “refuse to repatriate the funds”.
“I went to India but my evacuation was already late, so the Indian doctors said there was no need for surgery,” he says.
““I returned to Nigeria but they ate my money [sic] even though there was no surgery on my hand. The problem is that they always evacuate late when the damage must have been too deep-seated to be reversed.”
Unnamed soldier who missed surgery in India
The injured soldiers are not alone in their claims, with a senior army officer blamed soldiers’ neglect on corruption in the army, and calling for “an overhaul” of the system.
“I know some soldiers were referred to the 44 Hospital in Kaduna, but they were left at the mercy of their parents and family. Some of them go to their families for financial support to treat themselves. You can imagine how terrible it is,” he says making no effort to conceal his anger.
“It has to do with corruption; the Nigerian army is supposed to be responsible for their treatment but they will not give you the required treatment because somebody is somewhere making money out of it.
“So technically, the army will say it is responsible for treatment but when you get there, you won’t get the kind of treatment you deserve so you will be forced to source better treatment elsewhere.
“So many things about the army are bad; it needs total overhauling, all the sectors. For example, there are cases in Kaduna that should be referred to India but they won’t, because someone is taking the money while the person is there dying. It’s only if you have an influential person that your case will be referred abroad, else you will be left lying there.”
A pretty grave allegation
Major General Abimbola Amusu
Yet another soldier, who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation, fingered Amusu former medical director of the 44 Hospital, as the main reason soldiers have lacked the best care either in the country or abroad.
He cites the example of a colleague of his who was evacuated to India bearing an injury on both legs, with one particularly at the risk of amputation.
“They called Major-General Amosun from India that more money was needed for surgery on the other leg, but she told them that there was no money, so both legs should be amputated,” this soldier says of a colleague of his,” he says.
“But the doctor refused to amputate the leg; he said he could not cut the soldier’s leg because the treatment had already started and that if she was not ready to approve the bill, he would take it over himself.
“The soldier was so angry that he called her on phone and cursed her that her own legs too will be amputated someday. Somebody that is bestowed with managing resources meant for soldiers, and she finds it difficult to let soldiers have access to such services, and the person is still in the army and she was even promoted. That means she has some powerful backers.”
‘Haba Da Allah!’: Army exonerates Amusu
Col. SaniKukasheka Usman
According to Sani Usman, spokesman of the Nigerian army, there is no smidgen of chance that the allegations against Amusu are true.
“This is a very grievous allegation,” he says.
“For you to accuse a major-general of making money out of a wounded soldier, you know it is more or less an abomination.
“I cannot imagine that a whole major-general and a medical doctor of reputation and all the rest will decide to pocket a soldier’s money. There are certain things that honestly are far beyond you in your entire life.
“I can understand that possibly there could be problems here and there, but it is not that bad simply because you want to make money. How much is a soldier’s estacode that a whole major-general will sit on it? Haba Da Allah.”
He adds that some injured soldiers cook up inconceivable stories in order to dishonestly enrich themselves off their injuries.
“They connive with those Indian doctors that every three months they should go back, which is not realistic because you have to process the money and get foreign exchange and we have equally experts here that can diagnose and easily manage some of these conditions that they have been treating in India instead of going every three months,” he says.
‘I feel like dying; I can’t even face my children’
Usman wants injured soldiers to exercise more “patience” but for someone like Hamidu, who is too ashamed to return to his family, any extra second wait is very hard to bear.
“Sometimes, I feel like dying. I feel like dying; I feel like dying,” Hamidu moans repeatedly.
“Imagine that the country we sacrificed our lives for is treating us this way. Okay, they are repairing and rebuilding Maiduguri; a lot of money has been pumped into the reconstruction of destroyed structures. But soldiers that maintained the peace there, nobody is making efforts to rehabilitate them, give them a sense of belonging.
“Rather, we’ll just remain on the hospital bed from morning till night for months, for years. As I speak to you now, some people have been in this hospital for more than two years.”
While he blames authorities of the hospital and the army hierarchy for the delay with prosthesis, he believes President Muhammadu Buhari himself a retired officer, is unaware of the sufferings of injured soldiers.
When the president’s wife visited the hospital in January, she personally handed each soldier a sum of N20,000 and promised to relay her discoveries to her husband.
“We have faith in her in that she gave each of us an envelope containing N20,000, by herself,” he says. “That was a signal that she knew that if she gave the money to the authorities, it would not get to us. We are happy because the money relieved us in buying drugs.”
One major concern for Hamidu is his physical separation from his children, whom he is “hiding” from, because of his condition.
“My wife and children are in Lagos but I cannot go back to them until the army has done something about my condition. If my children see me like this, I will look like vampire to them,” he laments.
“They will be wondering what happened to their daddy’s hands. My wife was in the hospital with me for three months, but I can’t allow my children see me this way.
“No matter how you see it, my children are lacking that fatherly love. I left home January 2013 and I saw them last year. But since August 2015 till now, I haven’t travelled home. I don’t know how to travel, because as I am now, unless somebody assists me, I can’t undress, I can’t bathe. Until I am helped by somebody, I can’t do anything for myself.
“The world is far developed for me to still be relying on people. All I need is the bionic prosthesis and I can get on with my life. Here, they will make arrangements with people who will provide fake, yet it would still gulp the same money that the government released for the original.”
It’s a vicious circle
The dissatisfaction of injured soldiers with their conditions of treatment has grave implications for the war against insurgency.
“What is happening to us is affecting those at the war front, because somebody who is on pass comes to visit me and says ‘Oh boy, since August last year, you are still like this? What are they doing?’ And you expect this same man to go back to the bush to make his own sacrifice after seeing how his buddies have been treated?
“It is not possible. When they remember that those of them that have problem with their legs they are still with crutches, those of them that their legs and hands are chopped off, no artificial prosthetics for them. You still want them to go and lose their own blood? Some of them will just run away!”
True to his arguments, hordes of soldiers in the expansive Sambisa forest and other interiorly located villages of Borno state are concerned by their likely fate in the event of fatal injuries.
Between 2009, when the insurgency began, and 2015, when the military began gaining the upper hand, thousands of soldiers either deserted the army or were dismissed for refusing to fight, while some even committed mutiny in 2014 by aiming bullets at a commanding officer in protest of deaths of soldiers due to inferior firepower. Majority of them have long been re-screened and eventually recalled.
“Go to Kaduna and see my colleagues languishing at the 44 hospital,” one soldier, fresh from Sambisa, had told me in Maiduguri days earlier, adding: “How do you want me to fight with one mind when I know that my family’s future will be bleak if I die or suffer a fatal injury?
Chairman of EgyptAir, Safwat Musallam has disclosed that advance compensation payments of $25,000 will be offered to families of the 66 people who lost their lives when one of its planes crashed into the Mediterranean last month.
The payments are separate to those expected from insurance companies on behalf of various parties depending on the investigation into the disaster.
“An insurance company will pay an advance of $25,000 after each family prepares its certificate of inheritance,” said Musallam, adding that “Death certificates will be ready before Thursday for Egyptians and foreigners.”
EgyptAir Flight MS804 was on its way from Paris to Cairo on May 19 before it disappeared from radar screens between the Greek island of Crete and the north coast of Egypt.
Passengers on board the plane included 30 Egyptians, 15 French, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Seven crew and three security personnel were also on board.
Investigators have said it is too early to determine what caused the plane to crash, although a terror attack has not been ruled out.
Authorities in Cairo have begun examining the plane’s black boxes to ascertain the exact cause of the crash. Representatives from France and the United States are also taking part in the investigations.
The Leadership of the Ondo Forum in the South-South geopolitical zone has urged its members to participate in the Continuous Voter Registration in the state scheduled to commence on Wednesday, June 22, ahead of the November 26, 2016 governorship election.
Samuel Ayadi, President of the Forum in Bayelsa State, gave the directive in Yenagoa, the state capital, while calling his members to take active part in political developments in their home state, Ondo.
According to him, the several reforms by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, have restored public confidence in the power of the ballot box.
He said the group had embarked on a sensitization campaign to encourage members, who were yet to register and those who recently turned 18, to seize the opportunity of the exercise scheduled to hold between June 22 and 26.
Ayadi, however, urged INEC to extend the registration period to enable people outside the state to participate in the exercise.
“Our interest in Ondo state politics is driven by the reforms by INEC which has returned the power of choice to the people, which is why we want to participate in the process to ensure that Ondo people get the right leadership.
“There was a lot of apathy in the past but there is a new dawn and we want to identify with our kinsmen to enthrone the type of leaders that will turn things around.
“With the economic challenges before us we need competent and experienced leadership to turn things around,” Ayadi said.
Osagie Ize-Iyamu, a Pastor, has been declared winner of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship primary in Edo state.
The former All Progressives Congress, APC, chieftain polled a total of 584 votes out of the 713 votes cast to defeat the two other aspirants that contested the primary with him, Solomon Edebiri and Mathew Iduoriyekemwen, who scored 38 and 91 votes respectively.
The declaration was done by Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, who was the chairman of the primary election panel.
The largely peaceful exercise held at the Samuel Ogbemudia stadium in Benin, capital of Edo state, same venue where the APC held its own primaries on Saturday, June 18.
Speakers at the event boasted that the PDP would take over the Edo Government House in September as the aprty was set to win the governorship election.
Godwin Obaseki had emerged the APC standard bearer for the Edo State governorship election scheduled to hold on September 10, this year.
Resident Doctors in federal teaching hospitals across the nation have begun an indefinite strike over 10 months’ unpaid salaries.
Wole Ayegbusi, President of the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile Ife, said this in an interaction with journalists on Monday.
“We have started an indefinite strike this morning to drive home our demands,” he said.
“You will be surprised that today, some federal teaching hospitals have not paid December Salaries, which is unfair because it affects our productivity. Also some of our members have been sacked for no just cause and several times we have made efforts to dialogue with the Federal Ministry of Health but maybe due to their selfish reasons or incompetence, we have not been able to actualize that.”
Ayegbusi said the association had to painfully resort to an industrial action as it appeared the only option that the government would pay attention to, adding that NARD had given the federal government several ultimatums to clear the backlog of salary arrears but nothing had been done.
He said the association wants FG to as a matter of urgency pay doctors their salaries so that the strike would not continue to drag.
Since 2009, Nigerian soldiers have been going into battle with Boko Haram — with far inferior arms and ammunition — knowing this is the only proof of their love for fatherland. But once they sustain injuries on the battlefield, they soon discover that this love is unreciprocated. ‘Forgotten Soldiers’ is a five-part series exploring the agony of soldiers shattered by Boko Haram’s bullets and mines, and what their pains mean for their loved ones.
By Fisayo Soyombo
Doctors at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Gombe state, gave Johnson Nwibani just 12 hours to live — or die. An October 2012 victim of Boko Haram’s all-shattering, early-days rage, Nwibani arrived the hospital half-dead, having suffered gunshot injuries in his left hand, left leg and navel.
His breath was fading, and he had lost so much blood that he was on the cusp of slipping into coma. The doctors tended to his case as an emergency, promptly aiding his breathing with an oxygen mask. The following half-a-day would be crucial. If he didn’t regain consciousness after 12 hours, they said, it meant he had slipped from coma into death.
But like the brave soldier that he is — the one who withstood a midday raid by the insurgents, bloodied and sprawling on the ground yet firing shots to repel his assailants — Nwibani again fought to stave off the clawing hands of death.
Exactly on the stroke of 12 hours, he opened his eyes — bloodshot, heavy and bearing the gloom of his utter helplessness. He was alive!
Equipment more valuable than a soldier’s life
“I was on duty at the officers’ quarters. We should have been three at the location, but we were two because we were short of manpower,” Nwibani recalls the 2012 attack.
“Few soldiers were available because many of them had been posted to Borno State, as well as Yobe and Adamawa states. Around that time, the practice was to deploy soldiers inside the town so there weren’t many left at the barracks.”
Back then, the Nigerian military was just beginning to familiarise itself with the threat it was dealing with. Founded in Maiduguri in 2002 by the radical yet peaceful Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram clashed with the police in 2009, prompting the state government, with support from Abuja, to unleash a joint military task force on the sect
Hundreds of Yusuf’s followers were killed in the onslaught, and after Yusuf was himself shot by the police following his capture by soldiers, the reins of the sect fell to the erstwhile second-in-command, Abubakar Shekau. Far more bellicose than Yusuf, bloodthirsty Shekau immediately threatened fire and brimstone.
First, in September 2010, he mobilised followers across the north-east to mastermind a jailbreak for 105 insurgents imprisoned in Bauchi, and then began launching a series of reprisals against military formations. By August 2011 when the United Nations (UN) headquarters in Abuja was bombed, the military, and even the international community, had taken notice of Boko Haram.
By 2012, the army’s priority was to detail soldiers to the north-eastern states worst hit by the insurgency, depleting military might in adjoining states and rendering the barracks vulnerable. It is that vulnerability that insurgents exploited to catch Nwibani unawares.
“At exactly 12pm, Boko Haram brought an attack. They came through the back [of the building], and before we knew it, bullets were flying all over. They were firing from all angles,” he says.
“I tried to take cover, but they were just five metres away from me. Before I knew it, bullets pierced through my leg. The next thing, they shot my hand.
“I returned fire but I had already fallen down; they already damaged my leg so I couldn’t walk. I tried to crawl too, but they already broke my hand.”
By the time reinforcement arrived, the insurgents had escaped. By Nwibani’s account, the commander, whom he was protecting, did not step forward to fight while the attack lasted — the kind of arrant cowardice the military periodically professes to abhor.
“The officer in charge was inside; I thought he would come out to help us when he heard the gunshots, but he didn’t,” he says in annoyance.
“I fainted right there on the spot, and woke up to find myself in a pool of my own blood.”
Soldiers who arrived in an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) to provide support were forced to become emergency rescuers. But a shock awaited them.
An Armoured Personnel Carrier, APC
“They arrived to see blood gushing from my hand and leg, so they rushed to help me and my colleague to the APC.
“But the officer tried to stop them. He told them not to convey us to the hospital yet because our blood would stain the APC; he ordered them to wait for the arrival of one of our Hilux vans.”
In contravention of established military practice of always obeying orders, those guys ignored the officer and helped the victims into the APC. Had they listened, Nwibani would have bled to death, surely.
‘Help! Maggots in my leg!!!
It took Nwibani only four days at FMC Gombe to know his crushed leg deserved better. He called his commanding officer to request a pass to seek alternative treatment.
“They were not dressing my wound well,” he says, his face contouring into a frown to hint he was about to make an unpleasant disclosure. “My leg was so poorly and infrequently dressed that maggots started to enter. The sight of maggots in my leg made me inconsolable.”
He opted for the military hospital in Port Harcourt, capital of his native Rivers state, but his commander, whose permission he secured to embark on the trip, had no financial assistance to render on behalf of the army. First obstacle, no commercial bus/car driver was willing to have a smelly leg in his vehicle for a 13-hour trip.
“I called my brother to come take me to the park, and I was sad to see that the drivers were avoiding me, The only one who wanted to help, he billed me N100,000.
“I could understand; I was already a dead man and my wound was smelly; everything was rotten.”
Unable to pay the fee, Nwibani hired a soldier to drive him to Port Harcourt for N30,000 less — without the support of the country he was serving at the time of sustaining the injury.
“I paid the N70,000 on my own, from my salary,” he says, “and I don’t think it‘s fair.”
Finally, amputation
Back at home, his relatives moved him to a “private location” to escape prying eyes, and invited a doctor to clean up the wound and stabilise him, after which he reported at the military hospital.
“The army already told me that wherever I ended up, I must periodically report myself at any military hospital; it’s the only proof I’m still alive,” he says.
Presenting himself at the military hospital, he was told, for the first time, that his leg would be amputated.
“I met the doctor, General Robinson, and after examining me, he messaged my unit, saying the leg was already badly damaged and it would eventually be amputated.
“After two months, the army asked for physical evidence of my condition. I sent photos of the leg, and I got the nod to continue my treatment.”
In May 2014, the month after Boko Haram abducted close to 300 schoolgirls in Chibok — the largest of the sect’s series of underreported abductions — Nwibani arrived the 44 Nigerian Army reference Hospital in Kaduna, haunted by the grim knowledge that his leg would be severed from the rest of his body.
“I didn’t want them to touch the leg at all; and if they would, I didn’t want the amputation to reach my knee,” he says.
No one to help
Former Chief of Army Staff Kenneth Minimah assuring Johnson on his sick bed
When the doctor told him there was no other solution, he broke into tears. His despair was understandable. At that time, he was just 25. He had lost his father a year before joining the army. He had just one brother (who would later die in January 2016 during one of the numerous incidents of electoral violence in Rivers State). He had no sister, too. Aside his aged mother, there was only one other woman in his life: Joy, his girlfriend of five years who, like everyone else, would ordinarily not want an amputee for a husband.
Without a leg, he knew he could not go on defending his country, as he wanted to. Could he even defend himself in that state? Could he fend for himself — make his own meals, fetch water to bathe, visit the places he would want to? Could life ever remain the same? For so many reasons, Nwibani’s left leg meant so much to him, and losing it was hard to take.
“Before the doctor cut my leg, I asked him a question: ‘You are about to cut my leg, what will the army do to give me an artificial leg?’
“He replied: ‘Are you not a soldier? Army will definitely give you an artificial leg? How will your leg be damaged in the line of duty and you won’t get another one?’
“He sounded so confident, so I told him to go ahead. He didn’t; he told me I won’t be amputated until I had accepted. I told him I had, after assurances that it would be artificially replaced. Then he cut it.”
‘Disappearing’ allowances
It is now more than two years since that amputation; Nwibani is waiting on the army for the prosthesis he was promised.
First, the hospital board met to review the cases of injured soldiers and their survival requirements. He was told he would be flown to India to obtain prosthesis.
“After the meeting of the board, I was told to procure an international passport,” he recalls. “When I complained that I didn’t have the money, they told me I would be reimbursed.”
At the time, his N31,000 monthly allowance (for soldiers fighting insurgency) was abruptly withheld. Of the 12 months of that year, he only received the allowance in the last three months. Throughout 2013 and 2014, he didn’t receive a dime, neither did he in the final three months of 2012. In January and February 2016, the allowance wasn’t paid. Although payment resumed in March and April, there are no guarantees for subsequent months.
In all, between October 2012, when he sustained his injuries, and April 2016, he was only paid his allowance five times, meaning his allowance “disappeared” on 38 out of a total 43 months! That is a total of N1,178,000.
Phantom India trip, fruitless Lagos sojourn, ‘fake’ prosthesis
Fake Prosthesis given to Johnson
Still, from his paltry month salary of N49,000, he coughed up N21,000 to obtain the passport in 2015. As of May 2016, Nwibani had gone nowhere near the international wing of any Nigerian airport! The much-vaunted India trip has turned out a tantalising mirage.
Of the waiting game that followed, he would say: “After I got the passport, they still said they would take us to India.
“I was here waiting, waiting, waiting. The next thing I heard was that there was an ‘order from above’ mandating us to be taken to Lagos rather than India.
“When I sought clarifications, they said all that mattered was for me to get an artificial leg. I accepted; you know that in the army, you cannot disobey an order from above.
“We were in Lagos for four months, nothing happened. Then after our return to Kaduna, they brought an artificial leg that gives me pains whenever I wear it. I got fresh wounds whenever I wore it; it hurt so bad that I first had to tie a bandage before wearing it.”
Each time he complained, he was told to “manage it”. The crutches were no better either; they were uncomfortable and hurting his ribs. Hurting crutches, ill-fitting prosthesis… it was like being torn between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Nwibani was still trying to make some sense out of the mess when he was told he had been discharged from the hospital.
“They said I should go home and come back for appointment after six weeks,” he says without holding back his shock.
“I returned after six weeks and re-lodged my complaint but I was told to come back again. So I have been coming and coming, and waiting and waiting.”
Army: No single soldier who doesn’t get his allowance
Col. SaniKukasheka Usman
“For anybody to tell you that he or she has not gotten allowances, I want to know which allowance,” Sani Usman, spokesman of the army, reacts when told that not all injured soldiers were receiving their allowances.
“Is it operational allowance? because every officer or soldier in operation Lafiya Dole is entitled to N1000/day. He or she gets the allowance even before the month runs out. It depends on how we get money, but usually, it is paid in advance.
“Remember also that we are coming from TSA and all of the rest of the things to the point that there was a time that accounts of the Nigerian Army were affected. That is one, because of TSA.”
Although Usman explained that Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff, recently decided that there was so much dishonesty in the payment of troops’ allowances, he did not clarify if the “dishonesty” meant some people were not paid. What he said was that to eliminate this dishonesty, Buratai sanctioned a biometric process requiring all officers and soldiers to re-submit details such as mobile telephone numbers and bank account numbers. He suggested some soldiers made a mess of the process.
“But unfortunately, I can give you the name of a soldier who couldn’t give a normal ten digits account number that belongs to him. And of course, money was accredited to that account, and it bounced back. The processes of recovering it back into the treasury and reposting it takes a while.
“That is why we have had instances, some complaining that they have not gotten their allowances for three to four months, but I can assure you that I was recently with the army’s chief of account and budgeting, and when the chief of army staff asked him, he said there was no soldier anymore who didn’t have his allowance.
“It is not just that, [there are] those that have duplication, that is, they pay to the first name and not the second. These are the routine administration procedures that we face.”
Army: Prosthesis? It is not that bad
Although Usman acknowledges that “there are some of the soldiers who genuinely have strong cases” for prosthesis, he adds that they are “so impatient to the point that they don’t follow the normal procedures and they end up accusing the system when in the real sense of the word it is not so”.
“Let’s start with the prosthesis, the artificial limb,” he says.
“I know that, after all due clearance, when there is a need for something, we have gone into partnership with some companies. It is not something that will happen overnight. And you know the budget… but that notwithstanding, effort has always been made and I was with the chief of administration recently, he gave me the figure of those who are entitled to this artificial limb.
“It is not that bad the way people think it is. We are open. I know no system is perfect but I can tell you we are doing the best we can.”
A plea for mercy
Johnson Nwibani
“That one is not leg,” Nwibani says of the prosthesis, “because, with it, I can’t even walk.”
It is now 44 months since he has been waiting for it — and more than a year since the army put up his face in its 2015 calendar, as an example of how it would care for soldiers harmed by Boko Haram on the battlefield.
“I am the same man that the army — when Kenneth Minimah was chief of army staff — put in a calendar for all to see, and promised to take very good care of,” he laments.
“So many people think I now have an artificial leg, but no I don’t. Please help me beg the army; help me beg the federal government. With a good artificial leg, I can still live a meaningful life.”
In the next instalment of ‘Forgotten Soldiers’, you will meet a soldier whose intestines were blown open and his limbs chopped off by a bomb blast, and was left for dead at the 7 Division Hospital, Maiduguri, before a combination of sheer luck and rare courage gave him a second chance to live
Editor’s Note: This project was produced with support from the International Centre for Investigative reporting (ICIR)
