TheCable

Wives of police officers fighting Boko Haram in the north-east, on Friday, staged a protest asking the federal government to redeploy their husbands from the combat zone.

Dressed in black attire and matching through some streets in Jos, the women accused the government of neglecting their husbands despite the constant killings by the insurgents.

“Our hearts are troubled,” a protester who identified herself as Mrs Gabriel said.

“Every day, we are being turned into widows due to the fight against Boko Haram in the north-east, because our husbands who are deployed in the region are daily being killed by the terrorists without anything being done. The situation is unbearable to us.”

Mrs Ilya, another protester, said: “Why are our husbands not being redeployed according to the terms of their engagement? Some of them have overstayed in their places of assignment, yet they just abandon them to their fate,   making them easy preys to the terrorists who have sophisticated weapons.

“Many of them have been killed with the information kept secret from their families while those who managed to be alive are not allowed to visit their families for many years.

“The federal government should have pity on us and save our husbands from avoidable death.

“That is why we are calling on the  government to redeploy them before we all become widows.”

Reacting to the protest, Ubah Ogaba, spokesman of the state police command, said Isaac Akinmoyede, the commissioner of police, would call the women for a stakeholders’ meeting so as to resolve the issue amicably.