The Nigerian Army has sacked a soldier attached to the Army University, Biu, Borno State for professional misconduct.
SaharaReporters gathered that the private soldier was accused of taking pictures while seated in the superior officer’s office.
“Private soldier dismissed from service after taking a photo in a colonel’s office. Pls personnel should be warned cause it’s getting out of hand,” a short message sent by a commanding officer on WhatsApp to soldiers read.
Confirming the incident, a military officer said, “This guy is so indiscipline, a chronic one but I don’t think he deserved to be dismissed with what he just did.”
However, SaharaReporters had not been able to ascertain the identity of the soldier at the time of filing this report.
President Muhammadu Buhari last year signed the bill for the establishment of the army university.
The Bill entitled: “An Act to establish the Nigerian Army University, Biu as a conventional university with selected programmes, limited and focused faculties to promote scholarship, research and other means of advancement of knowledge and its practical application to military hardware and software, and provide an opportunity of acquiring a higher and liberal education in Nigeria”, seeks to tackle insecurity in the country, professionally.
In December 2021, Private Hannah Sofiat Akinlabi, a female soldier, was detained after video clips of her being proposed to by a male corps member at the National Youth Service Corps orientation camp in Yikpata, Kwara State, went viral on social media.
He was released after spending days in a detention facility of the Nigerian Army.
SaharaReporters had reported that the female soldier was ordered to be detained by Captain MM Abdulahi, Kwara State NYSC Camp Commandant, at a military detention facility in Ilorin, the state capital, pending further investigations.
A military source had said she was detained for not being “due for marriage, romancing on uniform publicly, absent on parade, indiscriminate behaviour, doing other things aside from her purpose in NYSC camp, disobedience to standing order of social media rule and disobedience to ethics and tradition of the Nigerian Army”.
Her arrest and detention were widely condemned by civil society groups and Nigerians in general, who described it as gender discrimination by the Nigerian Army.