Housing Scheme: troops beg Army Chief, Claims Military Owes them Uniforms and Boot Allowances

Some disgruntled Nigerian Army troops have complained that the military owes them uniform and boot allowances and continues to take money from their pay in the name of a housing scheme.

The troops told SaharaReporters on Saturday that the Nigerian Army’s official assertion that the soldiers were properly consulted on the concept was completely false.

They also claimed that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, was unaware of the program in the works when he took office in January 2021 and that the contentious housing program is his idea.

Some soldiers argued that the housing scheme was an ingenious way for the army to defraud the lower ranks of their meager pay.

“This is a welfare housing policy proposed by the Chief of Army Staff for the other rank cadre which is to be compulsory and monthly deductions will be made from every soldier’s salary. No soldier was consulted on this. The officer cadre was exempted; besides, most of us have houses of our own. Our scarce skills allowance is N100,000 every month but we are short paid,” one of them said.

“There was no housing scheme in the pipeline that the new Chief of Army Staff met when he assumed office. No soldier was consulted, and questionnaires were not shared to sensitize or sample the opinion of troops.

“Our salary has not been increased; we still buy uniforms and boots for ourselves; we live in dilapidated buildings. We’ve not been paid a uniform allowance and boot allowance. You are deployed to a company, the company pays the sum of N150,000, but the Commanding Officer will pay each soldier N30,000,” another soldier said.

Recall that the troops rejected an alleged plot by the Nigerian Army’s leadership to remove money from their pay on a monthly basis on Thursday.

According to the troops, there is a plan to withdraw money from their paychecks on a monthly basis for a proposed Nigerian Army Welfare Housing Scheme (NAWHS), according to an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari.

They described the idea, on the other hand, as a ruse and an attempt by Army officials to further bankrupt them while they continue to live freely.

The letter was signed by 05NA/57/2084 SGT Yusuf Shetima, 04NA/55/0925
CPL James Ibok, 09NA/62/5578 LCPL Danladi Ibrahim, 11NA/66/10622 LCPL
Afolabi Showumi, and 13NA/70/11034 PTE Lucky Dolph.

They urge President Buhari and the National Assembly to persuade Lt-Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, the Chief of Army Staff, to abandon the proposed scheme, and if he insists on continuing with it, it should be optional rather than mandatory.

The Nigerian Army’s Director of Public Relations, Brig-Gen Mohammed Yerima, responded by claiming that the soldiers had been properly consulted.

“The current Chief of Army Staff met an Army Housing Scheme in the pipeline and constituted a committee to understudy its feasibility and desirability. The committee subsequently designed the questionnaire for soldiers to bear their minds on the scheme and ascertain those interested in it. It was still at this stage of administering the questionnaire to soldiers that agent provocateurs seized the moment to demonize the scheme with toxic narratives,” the army’s spokesman had stated.