Nigeria’s Senate on Tuesday requested the country’s service chiefs to resign after a recent killing of soldiers and mass resignation of others engaged in the fight against insurgency and banditry in some parts of northern Nigeria.
The order followed a report on Monday that at least 23 Nigerian soldiers were ambushed and killed in Katsina State on Sunday by bandits.
Ali Ndume, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Army and a Senator from Borno State, moved the motion through a point of order during plenary.
Borno is the theatre of an 11-year-old war between Nigerian forces and Boko Haram Islamists who are fighting to establish their brand of government in Nigeria’s northeast region.
There has been an increase in the number of Nigerian soldiers killed by Boko Haram insurgents, who sometimes ambush such soldiers on their way to operations against the Islamists.
A report in March had said that about 50 soldiers were ambushed and killed in Goneri village in Yobe State.
These developments are diminishing morale among the soldiers, hence their option to leave the Army.
On the 22nd of June 2020, a lance corporal in the Nigerian army name Martin Idakpein made an online video wherein he condemned the lackadaisical attitude of the Chief of Army Staff towards the attacks and killings of innocent Nigerians and soldiers as well as the untold hardship soldiers face while conducting combat operations.
A week ago, Nigeria’s House of Representatives mandated it Committee on Army to investigate the resignation of 356 soldiers serving in the North-East, arguing that such incidents portended serious security threats and an impending military mutiny.
Senators who spoke on the motion bemoaned the development and pointed out that it could compromise the war against insurgency and banditry.
