The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, lamented the effects of the disconnection of power from various Army barracks and cantonments by power distribution companies on Friday.
According to him, the blackouts in barracks have led to the decomposition of corpses in Army mortuaries, which has even led to families protesting against the decomposition of their deceased.
“Corpses in the Army mortuaries are decomposing, and the owners of the corpses are protesting,” he said.
News About Nigeria gathered that the disconnection is because the Nigerian Army owes N42 billion in electricity bills.
Labaja said this during his visit to the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, in Abuja, where he appealed to the minister to come to their aid.
According to him, the main reason he visited the Minister was to discuss the consequences of the power outage in Army formations and the way forward.
Describing the blackouts in army barracks and cantonments as security threats, Lagbaja lamented the fact that some barracks and cantonments had been in total blackout since January.
He therefore appealed that, because the army couldn’t raise funds to pay the entire debt, a liquidation should be done as it was done in 2005 by the then President.
The Minister of Power, in response to Labaja’s appeal, assured him that he would dialogue with the power distribution companies to relieve the Nigerian Army of its electricity debt burden.
He also noted that he would intervene and restructure the debt payment method if the Chief of Army Staff would assure him that the Nigerian Army would not fail in paying up the debts.
