Persecuted Female Soldier: Rights group appeals to world leaders to stop Nigerian Army

World leaders have been urged to promptly intervene in order to safeguard apprehended junior female soldier Miss Ruth Ogunleye from any physical, psychological, or emotional harm inflicted by desperate military officers attempting to obscure the activities of higher-ranking sexual predators.

Leaders in the civil rights movement, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), specifically requested the intervention of US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, US-based Human Rights Watch, and the Nigerian branch of London-based Amnesty International in their SOS sent out on Wednesday.

In addition, HURIWA requested that Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, the Chief of Army Staff, "order the release from illegal arrest and arbitrary detention" of Miss Ruth Ogunleye as soon as possible. This was due to her public statement in which she denounced what she claimed to be repeated sexual harassment, intimidation, dehumanisation, and false imprisonment by certain senior officers of the Nigerian Army who had attempted in vain to obtain sexual gratification from her.

The rights group "Official human rights violations which are highly egregious and offends salient fundamental provisions of the Nigerian Constitution guaranteeing respect for human rights of every person irrespective of status, including numerous universal, global human rights laws and treaties entered into by Nigeria as a member of the United Nations," the statement denounced the reported arrest. According to HURIWA, the reported arrest of her "runs counter to the image being created by the hierarchy of the military in the last few years regarding the mainstreaming of adherence to the constitutional provisions protecting and promoting human rights." It is also unconstitutional and primitive.

The rights group questioned in a media release issued by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, its National Coordinator, "Does this mean that all the resources, both human and financial, committed by the military institutions towards driving the process of establishing functional human rights desks and a full-fledged department for civil and military relations are now being thrown to the winds or to the dogs?"

It stated This primitive methodology of the Nigerian Army in the twenty-first century portrays the Nigerian Army as lying to the world when it repeatedly claimed that the military institution had set up the mechanisms and department for the resolution of issues arising from human rights abuses and cases either between the military operatives or civilians. It is "unnatural and indeed strange that the Army is now trying to employ crude means to suppress the human rights of Ruth Ogunleye who is a victim of human rights violations committed by some senior officers."

In HURIWA's analysis, the Nigerian Army's hierarchy's arrest of Ruth Ogunleye violated several constitutional requirements, including Section 34. (1) Every person has the right to be treated with dignity, and as such:

a) No version shall be subject to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.

(b) No person shall he held in slavery or servitude: and

(c) No person shall be required to perform forced of compulsory labour.

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, it was announced that Miss Ruth Ogunleye was detained and transported by air from Lagos to Abuja.

In a recently viral video, a junior female soldier stationed in Lagos State alerted viewers to the fact that certain higher army commanders were threatening to kill her if she turned down their advances.

She bemoaned the mistreatment she had received from the top army officers ever since she was assigned to the Cantonment Medical Centre in Ojo, Lagos in 2022, due to her refusal to comply with their approaches. She claimed that she had been wrongfully accused of having a mental condition, which led to her being held up multiple times without cause, kicked out of her flat, and placed in a mental health facility for a month without access to medicine.

She said that since February 2023, her bank account had been suspended and she had not received her salary for no apparent reason.

She also claimed that one of her purported abusers had made many attempts to rape her. The female soldier said that the army commander had later asserted that she suffered from a mental disorder. She added that she had tried a number of things, such as drafting a petition and persuading higher and junior officials to step in, but to no avail.

She added that she had been refused admission to all army courses and passes to visit her parents by the same senior army commander who she claimed intended to rape her. She claims that when her father spoke with the police about her problems, the officer advised her father to tell her to follow the most recent directive.

"I know for sure that they will come for me," she murmured. I don't care that they will fire me and lock me up. I cannot bear it once more. I can't endure again before coming out to create this video. I wish not to pass away too soon.

HURIWA remembered that the female soldier did not notify pertinent organisations and bodies about her situation prior to the release of the video, according to statements made by the army through Major-General Onyema Nwachukwu, the Director of Army Public Relations. The Army reiterated that the claims will be looked at.

HURIWA, however, denounced the alleged detention and arrest of the victim of human rights breaches by senior Army officers as a blatant attempt to silence this girl and keep her from pursuing legal action.

The rights group said that the Nigerian Army is not superior to the Nigerian Constitution that established it in the first place and that the female junior soldier is entitled to all the human rights provisions guaranteed by the constitution as a citizen of Nigeria, which is the fundamental norm.