Premium Times
Nine years after Oladapo Joseph died as a senior officer in the Nigerian Army, his widow, Bolajoko, continues to suffer amid official neglect.
The couple tied the nuptial knot at Ilorin, capital of Kwara State, in 1983 as fresh graduates. Joseph worked as a teacher for eight years before joining the military in 1991.
“I already had two children for him before he was encouraged to join the army because the money he was making from his teaching job was not enough to take care of the family,” Bolajoko recalled.
She told HumAngle that her husband had it all planned like many others. He wanted to make some money to take care of his children and live together with them till old age.
His dream for the future began to look blurry in 1998 when he joined an army of soldiers in Sierra Leone.
In 1990, Nigeria spearheaded the formation of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) – a 12,000-strong allied armed force with troops from majorly Nigeria and others from Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea and Mali. It was to intervene and keep Charles Taylor’s bloodthirsty forces from plunging Liberia further into chaos.
The conflicts soon spread west to Sierra Leone, with young men, women and children abducted from their parents and given no choice but to become killing machines.
The conflict in Sierra Leone had been raging for about seven years before Joseph, with the army number 91NA/32/4128, joined Nigerian soldiers, numbering about 700, that were deployed to the country.
The widow told HumAngle that her husband returned to Nigeria two years later with heart disease, following the difficult experiences encountered at war.
“They brought him back to Nigeria thinking he was not going to survive the illness but he did. He was later posted to Ikeja cantonment, 9 Brigade in Lagos. As his health continued to get worse, I was supplying water to different quarters at the barracks to assist my husband who was already battling with sickness,” Bolajoko said.
The soldier’s health became worse following a bomb blast that occurred at Ikeja cantonment on January 27, 2002, and which took over 1000 lives.
While Joseph and his family members survived the blast, he was sick again and was told at the hospital that he had enlargement of the heart. He was, thereafter, placed under proper medication when they moved to Ojo Barracks.
“My husband battled with this ailment until he collapsed and died at work on August 2, 2012. He was buried by the military in Lagos cemetery,” the deceased’s widow said.
She told our reporter that her husband died as a corporal at the age of 42. Soon after the burial, Bolajoko was advised by the Nigerian Army authorities to start processing her husband’s gratuity, being the next of kin.
