Barely 24 hours after the Nigerian Army announced the commencement of its recruitment, Nigerians have expressed unwillingness to join the army.
“I was interested before, but now I have changed my mind, I will never take my self to some seniors to use me as their source of income,” a Facebook user, Abubakar Sulaiman said.
Another Facebook user, Joseph Saint, said: “God forbid…me and my family, friends and neighbour reject it in Jesus name.”
The recruitment post was also greeted by negative comments amidst other inquiries comments on Twitter.
“They want to send us to our early grave. Except Yusuf Buhari, Kiki Osinbajo join the Army, pls don’t advice any of your brother or sister to attempt that suicide mission,” said @SaheedThrone.
King Pedro said the recruitment is “grouping another souls to waste. Borno State is calling.”
The rejection is coming a few hours after the National Bureau of Statistics released a report showing an increase in the unemployment rate in the country.
Out of a total active labour force of 115.5 million people in Nigeria, about 20.1 million people were unemployed in the third quarter of 2018, NBS said on Wednesday.
Many of the commentators hold that the mistreatment of the Nigerian troops will continually deter people from serving the country through the military.
While Sulaiman said “I will never take my self to some seniors to use me as their source of income”, another Facebook user, Joshua Danjuma, said, “Promise me modern weapons, I will apply”.
Similar thoughts have been expressed by some members of the Nigerian Army, who released a video deploring the poor state of their equipment.
In the five-minute footage in November, a soldier, while lamenting that dozens of troops had died in a recent attack, showed the burnt shells of several tanks and vehicles in the Metele base, which was attacked by the Boko Haram on November 18.
“See the weapons they bring here. These are not working,” he said.
“These are outdated vehicles, they are not working. They just keep them here for formality,” said the soldier.
“Imagine, they are killing us every day. The situation is getting worse.”
The soldiers said despite huge resources released by the government, the Nigeria military only supplies them with obsolete weapons, “that can’t stand any good fight with Boko Haram.”
They accused their commanders of using them to “make money” by deploying war tanks that have outlived their usefulness.
In June, soldiers also protested being redeployed to a battlefront in the remote Lake Chad region after fighting Boko Haram jihadists for years without relief.
Militants have killed several Nigerian soldiers in different attacks on army bases, particularly in Borno state.
The insurgents in November attacked the army base in the village of Metele, Borno state, and according to the army 23 troops were killed and 31 others were wounded.
However, some other media report claimed over 100 Soldiers were killed in the attack.
THE GUARDIAN NG
