Speaking to SaharaReporters exclusively, one of the affected soldiers revealed that before now, there was a provision of N30,000 as a monthly food allowance per head but there was a recent addition of N6000 (making it N36,000 per head) due to a hike in the price of foodstuffs in the market.
Some Nigerian Army personnel deployed to fight terrorists in the country’s northeast region have lamented not being properly fed by their superiors despite increment of money earmarked for their feeding allowance.
Speaking to SaharaReporters exclusively, one of the affected soldiers revealed that before now, there was a provision of N30,000 as a monthly food allowance per head but there was a recent addition of N6000 (making it N36,000 per head) due to a hike in the price of foodstuffs in the market.
The soldier revealed further that despite this increment of budgetary allocation, their superiors still continued to feed them with meals that even a dog could not eat.
He said, “The cheating was so much, too much. If I am not in the Northeast, I would have resigned because the cheating is much. Let say the money they gave them for feeding allowance is not that much.
But if they are giving us individually, no soldier will spend that kind of money without releasing what he spent the money for monthly. Each one of us, we are giving N30,000 per person for our feeding allowance monthly. But they will not pay it into our account, our personal account.
“They pay it to our COs (Commanding Officers) because they believe in a centralised kitchen, that not all soldiers will have time to cook, in case of emergency, in case of operation, in case of attack. They will be cooking the food from the kitchen and they will be taking it to wherever the soldiers are.
“So what now happened is that, even when food becomes expensive, they complained. The army hierarchy added N6,000 for everyone; making it N36,000 monthly for each soldier. So, Imagine 400 plus soldiers in a location, in my present location we are up to 500 if I am not mistaken, and we calculate N36,000 multiplied by 500 soldiers. It is going to be roughly N1.7million Naira.
“It should be to our advantage. But our food is so bad to the extent that if they give our food to dogs, they won't eat it. So, anybody that wants to live fine among us will have to take from his meagre salary to cook.”
The source revealed further that a day would not pass that the soldiers were not made to eat rice filled with stones.
“If I tell you that we eat rice every night. If you spend two years here, then Know that you will surely eat rice for 700 something days and the rice will be filled with stones. You will take one spoon without eating stones. Tasteless, useless foods are what they were cooking for us,” he added.