Is it true that the wives of military officers who perished in the Ejigbo crash in 1992 are yet to be paid their benefits?
This year’s Nigerian Armed Forces Remembrance Day may have come and gone, there are at least two issues that arose from its activities, at least as far as I am concerned. One was the report that wives of victims of the September 26, 1992 plane crash in Ejigbo, Lagos, were yet to get their dues, 31 years after. And, two, another report that children of military officers who died in the line of duty forfeit their chance of getting scholarship if they can’t secure admission once they are above 18 years of age.
Let me start with the former.
But before I proceed, it would be better to recap the Ejigbo disaster in which Nigeria lost a generation of young military officers, not in the war front, but in a period of relative peace at home. It happened on September 26, 1992, when a military plane, Hercules C-130, conveying 163 people, who were middle-ranking army, navy and air force officers, crashed about five minutes after take-off from Lagos. Some reports claimed there were 174 on board, or even 200, including some unidentified civilians, and possible military personnel who hitched a ride. However, a total 151 Nigerians, five Ghanaians, one Tanzanian, one Zimbabwean, and one Ugandan military officers were confirmed to have died, according to Wikipedia.
The military officers were on their way to attend a staff college course in the north. Nigerians would remember the kinds of insinuations that trailed the crash, chief of which was the allegation that it was designed to happen, to check the restlessness among the middle ranking officers who were dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country then.
It sounds like it just happened yesterday but that was some 31 years before. To now be hearing that their widows had yet to be paid their entitlements is incredible. I know we can’t put anything beyond our system as a country, the fact is; if this is true, then it is the height of callousness.
But because one should try not to be judgemental in an issue like this, it would be necessary to hear from the military authorities whether this claim is correct or not. Put differently, what kind of entitlement is being referred to here, because it is incredible that the military would not have paid the dependants of the dead officers a dime since their husbands died 31 years ago?
The widows bared their mind in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the visit of the President of Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DEPOWA), who is also wife of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Mrs. Oghogho Musa, to distribute palliatives to wives of the fallen heroes. The gesture is an initiative of Department of Civil/Military Relationship, in conjunction with Office of the Wife of the CDS, in commemoration of the 2024 Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
Oghogho, who was received by the General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Major-Gen, Jamal Abdussalam, distributed cartons of noddles, bags of rice, beans and other foodstuff to the widows at the occasion.
It was in the course of her giving the vote of thanks that one of the beneficiaries, Mrs. Folake Lasisi, the wife of late Lt.-Commander Lasisi of the Nigerian Navy, lamented that the entitlements meant for widows of the soldiers who died in the plane crash have not been released to them.
According to her, some of the widows have died, which is natural because 31 years is too long a period to expect that all the beneficiaries would still be alive. As a matter of fact, some of the children left behind by the officers have also died.
Lasisi said: “I am standing here as a representative of the widows of the Hercules C-130, plane crash on 26 September 1992. We the women, have not been given our entitlements after 31 years.
“We want you to help us to take our message home to the mother of the nation, the First Lady and the Armed Forces too. We want to feel a sense of belonging, even though our husbands are no longer there. We want to feel that we are still in your midst. We want to feel a sense of belonging.’
She added that “There are some things that are necessary for us to do and that is, our children. Some of them are not getting educational sponsorship. We want them to look at it and do something about it.”
It is already more than a week since Mrs Lasisi made the allegation that the widows were yet to be paid their husbands’ benefits and we are yet to hear from the military authorities. Some people say the military cannot respond to such issues just like that. I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. If it is true that these women have been left to their own devices in the last 31 years, then the military should have responded as early as yesterday, beginning with a public apology and an assurance to do the rightful with immediate effect. And all of these within three to four months because a lot of time had been lost already, not due to the fault of these widows but because of systemic collapse or inefficiency. So, they should not be punished for this.
Even in normal times, we know what it is for the load of two people to now be carried by one, and the minor partner in the equation for that matter, in this instance. Even where both parties are working to keep the home going, we know it is not easy these days, given the rate of inflation and the general economic meltdown in the country.
As a matter of fact, the military authorities must work towards paying the entitlements with interest because whatever the money could have bought if paid promptly is not the same that it would buy today. This is the only way to ensure fairness in this matter.
But closure cannot be brought to this matter until we also know why this had happened at all or why it has indeed lingered. Are we sure these entitlements had not been released and cornered by some people? This is Nigeria where just everything is possible. Corruption is a thriving industry in the country and not
even the military is exempt. We have seen how defence money had been stolen by some military chiefs in the past.
This takes us to the issue of scholarship for the dead officers’ children. I don’t know whether the policy of such children forfeiting their scholarship once they don’t secure admission after 18 years is general with the military or peculiar to the Ejigbo victims’ children. Whatever it is, it is not the best that these children should get. The truth of the matter is that many children do not secure admission into higher institutions of their choice at that age. Even for those having both parents around and with the capacity to pay their school fees, it is not in all cases that the children make it to the university before they clock 18. Not to talk of a situation where only one parent, in most instances the mother, who now singlehandedly takes responsibility for the training of the children after their fathers’ demise. For the widows of the Ejigbo crash victims, it is even double jeopardy. They are not paid entitlements and they have responsibility to, say, three or four children. The tendency is for them to take one step at a time like, asking one child to wait for the other to finish secondary school because they can’t afford to send the two of them together. We know what it is like in a country where there are no scholarships, no structured help anywhere! How is it possible for children in such situation to make it to university before or by the time they are 18 years?
What I am saying is that the military authorities have their job cut out for them. The country’s armed forces can only make little progress with treatment such as the one suffered by the wives of these young military officers who died in the Ejigbo crash. The military hierarchs must look out for the extant rules and regulations or directives and policies responsible for these kinds of treatment to the dependants of people who paid the supreme sacrifice for the country to be at peace. It is true that soldiers had signed to die for the country. This is huge a price on its own. To now realise that their children and wives or other dependants have no guaranteed future after they die in active service is more than enough disincentive to upcoming officers.
The widows have pleaded with the president’s wife to intervene on their behalf. Although Mrs Oluremi Tinubu does not have any axe to wield directly in the circumstance; as a former governor’s wife and now the country’s first lady, she knows how to use her influence to get these women out of the predicament that Nigeria has put them. The widows too know she can be of help, that was why they specifically pleaded with her to come to their rescue.
The Nigerian Armed Forces Remembrance Day should not be an occasion to review parades and do gun salute alone. It should be an occasion for sober reflections and tackling serious issues affecting the dependants of our fallen heroes if we do not want their clan to go into extinction. Just as we cannot afford to forget the heroes, we cannot also forget their widows. It is by doing both well that we can win the kinds of internal wars that the country is facing today.
