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| CDS, Alex Badeh |
Iyorngurum had alleged in a write-up entitled, “A
Lesson for All Nigerians,” posted on an online platform, newsrescue.com, last
week that Badeh sent helicopters to evacuate his family members from Mubi,
Adamawa State shortly before a Boko Haram attack.
“Before that sad day, someone from Mubi would
have boasted that the Chief of Defence Staff is from their home town. But on
the day that it mattered the most, he (Badeh) evacuated only his family members
and abandoned everyone else to their fate.
“It means he had information of the impending
attack and as the most senior military commander, he did not fly into the town to
lead his men in battle to defend the community.
“He quietly saved only his family and left even
the soldiers without an inspiring commander to motivate them to engage the
terrorists and defend the town,” Iyorngurum had alleged in the write-up, which
went viral online.
But the Defence Headquarters has since denied the
claims, insisting that the article contained “strings of deliberate falsehood
and spurious allegations.”
The military stated in a statement that the
damage done by the “fabrications” contained in that article written by
Iyorngurum had not only personal, but “national security implications.”
“While the DHQ remains at a loss as to the motive
for these unconscionable fabrications, it is pertinent to quickly repudiate the
false claim and to state clearly that at no time did the CDS send any
helicopter to evacuate any of his family members before, during or after the
attack on his home town.
“Contrary to the claims by the author, the
helicopter that flew to Mubi was on an operational mission to reinforce the
ground troops in preparation of efforts to repel the attack. The helicopter did
not convey any civilian or relation of the CDS as disdainfully insinuated in
the article,” the DHQ statement said.
Iyorngurum has, however, cried out that he has
since been receiving explicit threats to his life following the military’s
rebuttal.
Raising the alarm over what he described as
“threats to my life,” the young man, who heads the information and
communications unit of the Nigerian chapter of United Kingdom’s Institute of
Management Specialists, said he fears for his life.
Following the alleged threats, Iyorngurum noted
that he was putting his security in the hands of God, adding that the claims in
the article were statement of facts and not fiction.
Stating that he had been receiving threat
messages from “strange numbers,” he said a particular message forwarded to him
indicated that his “cup will soon be full because the intelligence service
monitors you.”
“I wrote an article a few days ago titled a
lesson for all Nigerians which went viral and found a lot of support from
Nigerians across religious and ethnic lines. The messages of commendation from
patriotic and truth-loving Nigerians whose minds I spoke in the article are
still flooding in.
“I have started receiving threats to my life,
which I suspect is from some person who misunderstood the import of my article.
This is not a surprise because we are in very trying times in the history of
our country and, at a moment like this, the truth is usually the first casualty
of interests that feel threatened by its mere mention,” he wrote in an article
shared via his Twitter handle.
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