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.
She said: “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.
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.
Peoplesmind