A former female soldier, Private Ruth Ogunleye, who was relieved from service after accusing a senior officer, Colonel I.B. Abdulkareem, of sexual harassment, has made further revelations about how superiors in the army refused to listen to her when she first reported her rape case.
The discharged soldier disclosed this when she featured on an AIT programme on Wednesday evening.
During the interview, she levelled allegations against General Christopher Gwabin Musa, the current Chief of Defence Staff, and other superior officers, claiming they deliberately avoided thorough investigation of her rape case due to the accused person’s seniority in the service.
“I sought intervention from people like General C. G. Musa, the current Chief of Defence Staff. I told him. I told so many officers. I sought redress but nothing was done because he is my senior, and nobody was ready to give me a listening ear,” she told AIT.
“I exhausted all the procedures; I sought redress using Section 179 of the Armed Forces Act and nothing was done. He would inject (me) and throw me inside a psychiatric hospital.”
She accused Abdulkareem of making repeated attempts to assault her, administering injections against her will, forcibly removing her from her residence, and confining her to a psychiatric hospital for several months after she rejected his sexual advances.
However, the Director of Army Public Relations, Major General Onyema Nwachukwu, said Ogunleye’s allegations lacked merit.
The army spokesperson said that after an exhaustive review of the facts, testimonies, and evidence presented, it was determined that Abdulkareem did not commit the offences alleged by Ogunleye.
Nwachukwu stated that medical reports following an evaluation at the National Hospital in Abuja indicated that Ogunleye was suffering from a condition that rendered her medically vulnerable.
