A military wife, identified as ‘Everything Woman’ on TikTok, has condemned what she calls Nigeria’s growing silence and indifference to the deaths of soldiers especially the summary execution of Brigadier General Musa Uba, Commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, Damboa, Borno State, by terrorists.
In a viral video, the woman bemoaned the disturbing silence across the country, contrasting it with the past when fallen soldiers were honoured with communal respect, with cities and States in mourning.
According to the military wife: “I’ve been online since morning, waiting to see something that will give me hope. So tell me why till now, everywhere just quiet like it’s a chicken that died. The younger me remember that back in those days, if a soldier falls, I mean any soldier, even if its private, even if it’s army trainee, falls, community they close, states go close because 10,000 men go bury that soldier. You go escort am go underground.
“Them go lose a Brigadier General and the whole nation is quiet like nothing happened. Even military wives are quiet. You go keep quiet till e go concern you. Our government is quiet. As a country, how do we lose guard to this point where they go kill Brigadier General and nothing happens? When I saw that man sitting down there like a thief, I began to ask myself, what is the point? What is really the point that our men cannot get protection or vengeance, call it justice? So what’s the point? They don’t fly half-mast in Maiduguri again, because if they do that, that flag will never go up again. It will remain on perpetual half-mast. That is the amount of people we are losing.
“Mr. President, as a military wife, my consolation was that, that all the times I had to carry my children by myself, take myself for every antenatal, bath my children without my husband, that a time will come, he will do his 35 years and I will have him back.
“That every birthday he has missed, every anniversary I had to do alone, every night I had to sleep alone, every mother and father work I have done, it’s because one day I will get him back. He will pay his dues. That has always been my consolation.
“So tell me now, why is looking as if the possibility that he might serve the army till forever has killed the reality of my consolation? Because he might miss every birthday for nothing, if he just die like foul. And yet, a bandit’s life is more important than a soldier’s life. If a soldier discharge one bullet in the bush to protect himself, you will charge him. If boys enter Bush to go take revenge, una go charge them.
“A man did not just die, men are not just dying, generations are dying. People that depended on this man, a whole family he carried on his back, died with him. We are waiting till they finish all of us before we go say something. Port Harcourt that hasn’t taken as much blood like Maiduguri has taken, they declared state of Emergency, the President declared it on the 18th of March this year. So, tell me why till now they have not declared it in Maiduguri? Why has the military not been given the power to take Maiduguri by the bull, by the horn? No be everything we go talk online, we know. People done know, we they watch news, we they hear things.
“It’s unfortunate, that some of the people that do this shit, they have passports. Some of us don’t have. So, when it gets bad, they leave the country for us. But the God that does not take preference or bribe, is my new consolence because every man go pay within his soul.
