Barrister Johnson Oyewole, lawyer to a female soldier recently dismissed by the Nigerian Army, after she was raped by suspected bandits, has appealed to Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, to upturn the decision.
The female soldier was dismissed after getting pregnant following the rape by the bandits who attacked their vehicle while she was on transit from Lagos to Oyo state.
The soldier was later investigated by an Army board of inquiry (BOI) and tried and was found culpable of the ‘Offence of ‘Conduct Prejudicial to Service Discipline’ and was dismissed from service.
Barrister Oyewole described the dismissal of the soldier as unlawful after the ordeal she went through in the hands of criminal elements, insisting that his client would be recalled to continue serving her fatherland.
The power to upturn the army board’s decision lies in the hands of the Chief of Army Staff in the case of a soldier being punished for an offence.
The lawyer noted in the appeal to Buratai that the victim enlisted in the Army in March 2012 as a member of 67 Regular Recruits intake, and was serving with 56 Signal Command, Mile 2, Lagos, before the incident.
Oyewole added, ”It is manifest that the purported trial of our client was tainted with substantial irregularities; there is no offence under the law and no element of the offence of misconduct prejudicial to service discipline that talks of pregnancy while in service and warranted dismissal under section 103 (1).”
He said his client lawfully applied for and was given a pass to travel to Oyo State, sometime in October 2014 when the vehicle she boarded ran into bandits along Odo-Oba road and she was allegedly raped by five men.
”It is manifest that the purported trial of our client was tainted with substantial irregularities; there is no offence under the law and no element of the offence of misconduct prejudicial to service discipline that talks of pregnancy while in service and warranted dismissal under section 103 (1),” Oyewole argued.
After the incident, the soldier was thereafter taken to Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, where she was treated for six days.
Barrister Oyewole noted that the raped soldier, as a result of the sexual assault, obtained an extract from the Police Crime Diary, a Sworn Affidavit, as well as a Medical Report, which showed that she sustained “injury of right ankle joint with laceration and bruises around the thigh region.”