A retired soldier, Sapper Olusegun Soetan, has lamented that he and his colleagues from the South-West have not been paid their pensions after fighting in the 1967-1970 civil war.
Soetan, who said he was among the first intakes into the Nigerian Army in 1963, said he and his colleagues either voluntarily retired or were discharged between 1978 and 1992 in accordance with a military’s regime circular, No.4/1977, dated March 30, 1997.
He said though the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was aware of their case and had directed that they should be paid, the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, had not attended to their case.
According to him, Olonisakin and the Chairman, Military Pensions Board, Maj. Gen. A.B. Adamu, May last year, signed the New Guidelines on Administration of Military Pension for Personnel “to exclude us, the voluntary/discharged soldiers from the South-West states, from enjoying what personnel in the Armed Forces are enjoying now.”
Soetan said, “Most of us are above 70 years now and we are all from the South-West states. It is now 41 years that we have been discharged or retired from military service and five years after we went to the Military Pensions Board in Abuja in 2015.
“Many of us have suffered insult, abuses and humiliation from our immediate and extended family members and from many serving soldiers. Many of us have died from heart attack, some can no longer walk, some are blind and some are deaf after suffering for our great nation, Nigeria.
“The Igbo in the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force in the First Republic that seceded to Biafra and their leaders have been granted amnesty and paid their full benefits, while we, the gallant soldiers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that practically prosecuted the Nigerian civil war, are suffering and moving around like skeletons waiting to fall.”