BEVERLY HILLS, August 11, (THEWILL) – There was pandemonium at the entrance of the 21st Armoured Brigade of the Nigeria Army, Giwa Barrack, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, Monday, as wives of soldiers deployed to dislodge Boko Haram insurgents insisted that their husbands won’t be used as cannon fodders.
Maintaining that their husband would not go and face the terrorists with inadequate weapons, the women numbering over 100 caused a stir as they protested the deployment of their husbands to the troubled spots.
The protest is the second of such in the last 24 hours as the wives of soldiers at the Maimalari Barrack, Maiduguri had also protested the deployment of their husbands a day earlier.
Insisting that their husbands would not leave home with the type of equipment they currently have, they blocked all vehicular movements from entering or leaving the Barrack.
Blocking. the entrance of the gate, many of them were shouting: “We won’t allow our husbands to be killed, as the military authorities refused to equip them with sophisticated weapons that can matched the one of Boko Haram.”
One of the women who craved anonymity said “those that their bread winners were killed in the course of defending their fatherland were suffering, as the government has not done anything for them to alleviate their sufferings.”
According to her, “As soldiers, our husbands are supposed to defend their fatherland in the face of both external and internal aggression as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but that could only be done when they are supplied with modern war equipment and properly motivated as obtained in countries in other parts of the world.”
Calling on the Federal Government to provide better equipment for the soldiers to enable them confront the insurgents adequately, the women said this would be in line with President Goodluck Jonathan’s promise in his recent address during the fundraiser for the Boko Haram Rehabilitation Fund headed by Gen. T Y Danjuma (rtd).
