A retired colonel alleges that over 40 armed soldiers stormed his residence and evicted his family.
The Nigerian Army has refuted the alleged invasion of the residence of Emeka Ugwuoke, a retired colonel, and forceful eviction of his wife and children from his apartment in Enugu State.
The army spokesperson, Onyema Nwachukwu, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.
The retired colonel's story
Mr Ugwuoke had alleged that over 40 armed soldiers from 82 Division of the Nigerian Army had stormed his residence at about 1:15 a.m. on Wednesday to carry out the forceful eviction.
The retired colonel said the invasion of his apartment by the soldiers and the forceful ejection of his family, followed his longstanding squabble between him and military authorities in the state over ownership of the apartment.
The apartment is along Abakaliki Road, within an estate at the Government Residential Area in the south-eastern state.
He claimed he bought the apartment from the Enugu State Government some years ago and that he had presented documents showing evidence of the acquisition but army authorities in Enugu allegedly refused to listen to him.
Nigerian army speaks
The Nigerian has denied the allegations.
Mr Nwachukwu, a brigadier-general, said the apartment is part of the properties accommodating army officers in Enugu for over two decades, which are owned by the federal government.
The army spokesperson, in a statement, said the apartment was allocated to Mr Ugwoke as his official residence, as a major in the army posted to the military intelligence brigade of the division and later reposted to the intelligence group as the deputy commander of the group in the division in 2007.
"The officer continued to occupy the house even after he was posted out of the division, sequel to his plea that his family be allowed to remain in Enugu for convenience, rather than moving them from place to place.
"It is however later discovered that the retired senior officer dubiously used the official letter head of his office on three different occasions to solicit the monetisation of the house through some officials of the Enugu State Government," Mr Nwachukwu said.
He claimed that the army authorities would later observe in 2020 that the retired colonel was "attempting to wrongly appropriate to himself the official quarters which was still the property of 82 Division of the Nigerian Army through the state government," prompting the division's authorities to set up a committee to ascertain the status of the property.
The army spokesperson said the committee found, among others, that the apartment is among the properties owned by the Nigerian government and occupied by the parastatals and agencies of the federal and state governments after the civil war.
"This fact is corroborated by the search on the property from the Ministry of Lands and Urban Development which confirmed that there was no record of ownership of the property in its archive," he said.
The committee also found that the apartment was among properties handed over to the division by an unnamed "past administrator" to ameliorate its accommodation challenges.
It further found that the "said property was not among 26 residential quarters officially handed over to the Enugu State Government in 2015."
"It is worthy of note that officers of the Nigerian army occupying institutionalised houses are expected to vacate such accommodation while on posting or retirement. However, the retired senior officer failed to comply, knowing fully of the rippling effects on accommodation status of other posted in and serving officers," the army spokesperson stated.
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No brutality
Mr Ugwoke, the retired colonel, had alleged that his wife and children were brutalised by the soldiers who evicted them from the apartment.
But Mr Nwachukwu described the allegation as "outright falsehood" intended to whip up "undue sentiments."
He stressed that the Nigerian army is a disciplined institution with utmost regard for the family institution and the vulnerable, particularly women and children.
"Emphatically, neither the wife nor children were brutalised, and no property was damaged in the process of eviction.
"The retired senior officer's belongings were simply transferred from the house in question to his personal house at number 127 Park Avenue, GRA Enugu, to pave way for other serving officers to be accommodated," the spokesperson said.
"This was after serving the retired officer three previous official notices and several appeals for him to vacate the property after his retirement in 2021."
